Last Chance
by ceramicmrno0b
Summary: A planet under attack from aliens prepares to send three experimental light-speed rockets to another planet to restart their race before its too late.
1. Prologue

Well over five billion years ago, the human race was spread all across the galaxy on different planets with different species, coexisting as a slightly more than equal part of their government and daily life. However, an accident with an experimental time machine and an unapproved test subject changed all of that. The time machine didn't go back in time. It sent everything else back in time, before life had begun on earth. But time was just barely being understood then, and it behaved in strange ways. There were several places in the galaxy that had not been sent back in time, and most of them were lost or destroyed in the ensuing chaos. For example, a city on Kelrung-6 was left behind, but the planet was in a very different part of its rotation around its star, causing everyone in the city suffocated in the vacuum of space.

One city on earth and a planet were not sent back in time the city would be known as Atlantis, named after the planet that had survived the changes of time. A few thousand years later, the city sunk into the sea and was lost, but not before being put into legends by the restarting human race. Meanwhile, on the planet of Atlantis, humans began to change. They developed a new power and flourished in technological knowledge. The power the Atlantians began to develop was strange and scientifically impossible. To put it simply, they could move water with their minds.

A few years later, after a war severely decreased the population, people began to realise that their power was inversely related to the population of the species. Not humans, but the Atlantians, because the power had changed their DNA in unique ways and created a new species. A scientist then created a theoretical equation on how many gallons an Atlantian could influence at any given population, which was yet to be disproven.

About 2 million years after the accident with the time machine, a new race, more advanced than the Atlantian, entered the galaxy with the intent of conquest. The first planet they attacked fell quickly, having no intelligent life to withstand the enemy. The second planet was Atlantis. Seven months after they landed, all but a single city had been taken over by the enemy. The Atlantians realised that they could not save their planet after the enemy first landed, and began to frantically create a light speed rocket to take the species to another planet far away from the enemy, and to restart anew.

The Atlantians called the mission 'Last Chance', and were able to make three rockets with an experimental engine capable of light speed travel, and named the rockets Resilience, Hope, and Willpower. The three main characteristics that they would need to have to restart the species. They packed the rockets with the most advanced technology they could spare, and prepared to launch them before it was too late.


	2. Safety briefing- chp1

_This is the first story I've ever written publicly, so I hope it turns out okay. In this chapter, I'm just explaining some of the science behind the engine and why some things can or can't be done so that takeoff is less confusing, as well as introducing the main character. Any similarities to private, commercial, or government projects are purely coincidental. _

"The light speed engine is a very experimental piece of technology, which means it might not work at all. The engine functions of of two common elements, which are kept in two separate chambers until the burn sequence is initiated. They are then put through a nuclear fusion reactor to create a third, extremely rare and combustible element. Once this element is created, it is sent into another chamber until the signal to burn is sent. The third element is then burned, releasing large amounts of heat and radiation. This is captured and used to power the ship and as propulsion for the light speed travel, which is why we call it the burn sequence. "

Before the rocket can burn, all plasma cannons need to be retracted inside the rocket and all breaches sealed so that you don't lose all of your breathable air. Because the rocket is traveling at light speed, physics and time are very unpredictable. We predict that during the burn, there will be an artificial gravitational field inside the rocket, but there may not be, and other things might happen as well. During the burn, the Atomic Diverter will need to be engaged. Do not burn if the Atomic Diverter is damaged or destroyed! A single atom of Hydrogen colliding with your rocket at light speed would destroy the rocket and kill everyone on board. The Atomic Diverter will redirect any molecules in your way around the rocket and should reassemble them almost exactly the same way they were before you passed through their position. "

Each rocket has a crew of 50 and another 100 in the main cargo hold in suspended animation. They will automatically be woken up once you exit the burn. When you enter the rockets tomorrow, they will already be in there. The rockets have a cloaking shield on them, but you can't take off while they are active. When you take off, the cloaking shield needs to be off, shields should be fully charged, plasma cannons should be good, and everything needs to be operational. The plasma cannons can detach from the hull of the rocket and have four two joint legs that can extend out to walk, or use hoverdomes to float around in gravity. In the event that your landing gear is broken or destroyed, the rocket has three shuttles in a hangar, each capable of carrying 50 people into the atmosphere of whatever planet you choose to land on. "

If you burn in the atmosphere, the atomic diverter will be overloaded with too many atoms too quickly, so you need to enter space to burn safely. "

I yawned. These kind of talks had been happening for a week for the crews of _Resilience_, _Hope_, and _Willpower_, the three rockets that would take us away from here and to a new beginning. I knew I should be paying attention, but I had heard this talk several times, and the speaker this time was extremely monotone. I was the commander of the rocket _Hope_, a crew of 50, and a cargo of 100 people. Our launch tomorrow was going to be quick and easy- or so they said.

It had been a shock to the whole world when the Mundars- aliens from another galaxy- arrived on the planet. They started their conquest in the southwest and quickly took over most of the world. The city we were in right now was one of the last on the planet. I had fought the Mundars on several fronts, and nearly died each time. I lost all my comrades, squadmates, and commanders each time because of them. Now, I had to command 50 people on riskiest mission ever, with no retreat, no backup, and no second chances, because this mission was our second chance.

I had been chosen for this mission a week ago because I was very good at leading and shaping water-the power all atlanteans had. I was better and faster than most other Atlantians, and that was what had kept me alive each time I fought the Mundars. Now that the population was a lot lower, Atlantians were able to control water in ways we hadn't been able to before. We could change it into ice and steam, control its temperature, and even make precise machines. Two weeks ago, I had made a functioning rifle without realising it after my combat rifle had broken.

I just hoped that this plan worked, or the population would get a whole lot lower.


	3. Last minute supplies- chp2

_This chapter just adds an important item to the bridge crew and explains its functions a little bit. The next chapter will be the launch and I hope to get to another planet in the chapter after that, and then I think it will either get really interesting or really boring. _

"Bridge crew of _Resilience_, _Hope_, and _Willpower_, please report to the loading bay of your respective ships. "

It was launch day, and there had been a lot of last minute updates to do, and the launch was scheduled to begin in three hours. I headed to the loading bay of Hope, meeting up with the other eleven bridge crew members. The rest of the crew would be maintenance, gunners, repairmen, and other jobs around the ship. The bridge crew controlled all of the ship systems and settings and stuff. The bridge crew was the best dozen soldiers we could find after the Mundars landed, and had been trained as well as they could be in the little time we had left. We arrived in the loading bay and found one of the scientists waiting for us.

"Ah, there you are! Here, we have a last minute supply update for your ship. Just two items for the crew, it shouldn't take too long. " He reached into a nearby box and pulled out a watch on a leather strap. "This is a multipurpose watch, capable of time, direction, mapping, and communication. To activate different functions, just turn the hour hand to the desired number. The user manual explains it all. That item is for the whole crew, and is being handed out. "

He handed us each a watch and then grabbed another larger box. "This is an experimental piece of technology that we just got a few days ago. There was a large debate on whether or not this should be included in the cargo. " he opened the box, and inside was what looked like half of a combat visor, but it was different. It had a microphone that followed the jaw line to the bottom of my chin, and another cord that went just under my hairline and ended in the middle of my forehead. Both of the cords connected in an earpiece that went in my left ear.

"This is ARC, Analyze and React Computer. It is designed to increase reflex time, control your reactions, and help you survive. It also has an integrated AI. We have added a sentience program to the program, but you can deactivate it through the terminal. It has access to all of our data and stuff like that. It also has a USB cable attached to the bottom wire. This can access any compatible system. Also, the computer is specific to your DNA and neural patterns, so don't borrow anyone else's ARC. Anyways, I'll let you get ready to launch and stuff. Good luck!"

After he left, we went inside and prepared for the launch. I went to my cabin and put on the ARC. There was a humming noise, and the visor extended to cover both eyes. The glass then lit up with various options and settings.

"Hello, this is ARC. You probably already have been given a standard briefing on the system. How would you like to begin?"

"ARC, show combat visor. " I said. The glass blinked off and reappeared with my normal combat setup. Arrows on the periphery showing enemy and allies, a bar on the top showing the amount of power I was using, a list of my injuries on the left, and a list of allies and their status on the right. "ARC, create new visor" I plugged in the USB cord into a nearby plug on the ship.

"New visor created. What would you like to name it?"

"Name it _Hope_. "

"Visor named. Begin customization. "

"Put damage report on the left, with overall structural integrity and shield percentage at the top. Takeoff and burn procedure progress on the right, and make sure I can activate them out of order. Give me a power map in the center so I can reroute power as needed. That should be good once you've got all of that. "

"I do not have permission to access the rocket _Hope_. please grant access so I can add these settings to the visor. "

"Permission granted, do whatever you need to do to get it done. "

A few adjustments later, it was all set up nicely. I unplugged ARC from the ship and turned it off. The right half of the visor retracted and I went up to the bridge to see what needed to be finished before launch.


	4. Takeoff- chp3

_I think that this is one of my better chapters, so I hope you like it. In this chapter, Hope takes off and burns. At the end, they plan to exit the burn at a place where there should be a life-sustaining planet. Next chapter I'll probably have them land or go from the POV of control after Hope burns to show what happens to Willpower. _

Last Chance launch pad- 0453

"_Resilience_, please begin takeoff procedure and you are clear to launch and burn. "

"Thanks Control, we are removing cloaking shield and taking off now. "

I was on the bridge of _Hope_, watching _Resilience_ take off for the first time. The rocket took off and had cleared the atmosphere and would burn shortly.

"_Hope_, begin takeoff now. We are detecting activity at enemy encampments. "

"Beginning takeoff. Removing cloaking shields now. " I replied. "ARC, activate takeoff visor. " the visor slid open and the takeoff visor appeared.

"This is Ground Defense, enemy are advancing on our position. Bombers and escort are also incoming. "

"Ground Defense this is Control, please define bombers and escort. "

"We see five _Marauder_ class bombers and twenty _Swarm_ class fighters enroute. "

"Air defense here, we probably take out the bombers, but the fighters will pose a problem. _Hope_, heat up the plasma cannons"

"This is Ground Defense, we have engaged with enemy troops! "

"Same up here! _Hope_, 10 fighters we're cloaked and broke through! Take them out!"

It was too soon. We weren't close enough to space to make it. "Plasma cannons open fire! Control, we need more time!"

"_Hope_, put as much power into the engines or you won't make it!"

I knew that we wouldn't make it, even if everything we could spare was sent to the engines. I took a deep breath, and began to work. "ARC, power up the Atomic Diverter, switch plasma cannons to energy bolts and begin the burn sequence. " there was an explosion and the ship shook violently. "Damage report!"

"We have a breach in the main cargo hold. It has been sealed, but we will lose all the cargo in there. " ARC replied. The shields were at 56% and falling fast, the overall integrity was at 98%. There was another explosion and a new damage report appeared on the visor. I quickly rerouted power from lights, main cargo hold, screens, and other unnecessary items to the Atomic Diverter.

"_Hope_, what are you doing? You need to clear the atmosphere before burning. "

"We don't have enough time! Launch _Willpower_ before it's too late!"

"This is Air Defense, we are outnumbered! Only two light figh-"

"This is Ground Defense! We are falling back to the inner compound now! Move control to the secondary command location immediately!"

"Control, _Hope_ is burning now. Goodbye. " I hit the burn button and hoped for the best.

Somewhere in space in light speed travel, still launch day- 0634

"We've lost the main cargo hold, the Atomic Diverter is damaged, the fusion chamber is destroyed, landing gear is destroyed. we lost eleven plasma turrets, and the rest are damaged. Two of the shuttles are broken, and we are working on repairing the third for landing. " This was not good news. The cargo hold had 100 people there, and they had all died. The fusion chamber was destroyed, so we would run out of burn fuel in a few days and be lost in empty space. "Also, sir, we seem to have a leak somewhere that we can't detect. We will run out of air in twelve days. " That was definitely not good.

"Okay, how long until the shuttle is operational, and how many space suits do we have?"

"We have four operational space suits, most of them were in the main cargo hold. I estimate three days until the shuttle is usable for landing on a planet. "

"Thanks for the update. I need to think about what to do next for a bit. " I went to my cabin and sat down in my chair to think. "ARC, what' the nearest planet?"

"There are no viable planets within our range. However, I have uncovered an old file from before the accident with the time machine regarding a moon the humans used to refer to as Pandora. It is along our route and in range and has life on it, but the file is incomplete and corrupted, so it may not be true at all. "

"Are their any other options?"

"Not in my memory or databanks. "

"Then we'll stop our burn their. How long until we get there?"

"At lightspeed, it should only take four more days. "

"Good. that will give us time to fix the shuttle. I'll go tell the crew. "


	5. Landing- chp4

_This part is where they land and run into a big problem on the surface. It'll probably be a few chapters before they meet the natives while they recover and set up camp. _

"Alright guys, get on the shuttle. We're ending the burn soon and will enter the orbit of whatever's close, so hold on. " There was a lurch as the ship decelerated and stopped moving. I was still on the bridge with the bridge crew while the rest of the crew boarded the last shuttle. The shuttle could carry 50 people and had four plasma cannons on it, two on top and two on the underside. Our plan was to board the shuttle, get the crew into the in atmosphere pods, which were basically paramotors with survival kits attached, fly down, eject the pods, and hopefully land safely. In case we didn't, the rest of the crew would be safely away and able to restart the species. "ARC, you were right. There is a moon here, and it looks have life. Deploy the drone and set us in an orbit around the moon. "

The drone was a unit that entered an atmosphere, sampled the air, and determined if it was habitable or not. A few minutes later, a report came back that confirmed that the air was breathable, but the oxygen levels were a bit low and would take some adjusting to get used to them. "Alright, air is doable, bridge crew, get to the shuttle. Let's fly down there and get set up. "

The shuttle only needed six people to fly properly, so the other six bridge crew members joined the rest of them in the pods. "Engines online, we are exiting _Hope_ now. " A few minutes later we were entering the atmosphere of Pandora. We got lower and prepared to drop the pods from the bottom of the ship. "Pod doors should be open now. Rendezvous at the landing site. "

"Sir, the pod doors aren't opening. " said someone through the intercom

"Uh oh. Hold on!" There was a small explosion as engine 2 and 3 decided to stop working.

"Activate hover domes and landing gear!"

"Hoverdomes online! Landing gear unoperational!"

"That's okay, we can float, woah!" the ship pitched forward and the nose of the ship hit the tree canopy.

"Front hover domes offline! Reverse thrust unavailable, we're going to crash!" The bottom of the ship started to scrape the trees. The other two hover domes gave out and the whole ship crashed down, slid for a quarter mile and rolled 60 degrees to the left before coming to a rest. I stood up and looked around. The glass had shattered and I was still in the console chair, but everything was at a weird angle. There was a crash above and to my right, and I could barely tell what it was when it slammed into me and carried me with it as it slid down and crashed into the side of the ship, throwing me out of it and onto the ground outside. I blacked out when i hit the ground.


	6. Aftermath- chp5

_Oh, I forgot to mention last chapter, Willpower was destroyed before it was able to burn, and all the Atlantians were killed when the rocket fell down on them after the engines were destroyed. So, yeah. Resilience is alive an well though, which makes the total species population 156. _

I woke up on the ground a few hours later. The first thing I noticed was that my ARC was shattered and broken. The bottom wire was missing and half of the top wire was gone, and most of the visor was broken off. I sat up and saw that three of the bridge crew was lying on the ground near me. I looked around and saw two other members working to salvage from the wreck. I managed to stand up, but I had been hurt really bad in the crash and everything hurt all over. I climbed up into the ship next to them and started to help them find useful supplies. "I'm gonna set security level to red until we have a self sustaining camp set up, okay?" Security level red was where nobody used names, just call signs on radios and didn't reveal any details to outsiders. Since there were only six of us left, we would be going as alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, echo, and foxtrot.

"Sure thing alpha. "

"How are the others doing?"

"They'll live, but it'll be a bit until they recover completely. We were waiting for you to wake up before we moved anywhere. I started to set up the camp in the crash streak"

"Okay. We'll stay here until everyone is awake and then we'll figure out what to do. How much supplies do we have?"

"We got the supplies from the bridge escape pods, which gives everyone 20 days of rations, a light rifle and pistol, three grenades, flashlight, tent, and other survival gear. "

"Okay. We'll stay here for a few days. "

"Alright, is everyone ready to leave here?" it had been a few days since we crashed, and we were the only people who survived the crash. Everyone had healed up nicely, and we were ready to travel wherever we needed to. We had pack up earlier today so that we could leave, and now all we had to do was decide where to go. _Hope_ was left in orbit, and exterior cameras had located a large tree about five days travel from here. My ARC screen was broken, but I kept the earpiece so I could still talk to ARC, but not get the visors. I turned the hour hand on the watch to 4. A holographic mini map appeared above the watch. I added a rally point to the map, and everyone was immediately able to see it. "This is our destination. There was a reference to this point in a file my ARC found while on the rocket. I'm certain that we can find shelter there and maybe get help from anyone living their. We have no knowledge of any intelligent life, but I think that some exists on this planet. We do not want to start a war here. We just need help to survive. "

Everyone agreed and we began to walk towards the rally point.


	7. We are not alone- chp6

_This chapter is longer than my other ones and probably a little bit better than the other ones too. I'm not sure what to do for next chapter yet, but they'll probably get to their destination and then something will happen. I'm not sure what yet though. Oh, if your wondering why they crashed in chapter 4, it was because of the theory of special relativity, which makes object shrink in the direction of travel while they are traveling. Normally the effect is too small to notice, but at light speed it plays a large roll. They crashed because when they stopped light speed, some of the shuttle pieces unshrunk, but some didn't and caused them to crash. _

We had left the crash site two days ago and were about halfway to the rally point when we were attacked. It came from nowhere, with no warning or time for preparation. One moment the dense jungle was quiet, the next weird wild wolf-like animals were streaming from the trees towards us. "Circle up and make a dome before they get here!" We all got together and were able to complete the dome before we were hurt, but the animals kept coming. They attacked the dome and tried to get through. After the crash and on the walk, we had all practiced with our powers some, but we still weren't very good at making ice, even with our ARC's help. One of the limitations of our power was that we could only move water, not make it, so any water we used had to come from somewhere. In this case, we could take it from the trees and plants and return it once we were done using it.

"Breach! Help!" I whirled around and fired three shots toward Delta, hitting two of the animals. One of them died and the other ran away.

"Our weapons have an effect on these creatures, we have a chance of getting out of here!" I said, but then I was tackled from behind. Instinctively, I mentally shoved it off, and a fist of ice punched it off into the forest. I turned around and saw at least fifteen more animals. I switched the gun to automatic and began to fire at the animals. I took out ten of them before they got to close for a rifle. The odds weren't looking to good. The wolf creatures stood back around us and we were tired and outnumbered. The only advantage we had was the range, but they were pretty close now.

"SIr, I'd recommend a shield and spear circle. " The shield and spear circle was us in an outward facing circle with shields and spears poking through, all made of ice.

"No, we're too tired, use just a sword and fight melee. I think that's our only chance. " We had all had experience with swords on Atlantis, since it was the easiest way to kill the Mundars close up, but also because it was one of the few things we could make when the population was so low. The animals suddenly attacked, leaping from the ground and slashing with their claws. "ARC! Analyze weak points!"

"The whole animal has little natural armour, but the weakest point is the underside. However, your sword should be able to pierce anywhere on the animal. " I sidestepped a lunging animal and slashed down on it before it could recover.

"I'm getting heat signatures incoming! Their bigger than these guys, but their incoming fast!" Bravo was the only one whose ARC had not shattered in the crash.

"Hostile or ally?"

"Intent unclear! Visual in 15 seconds! What should we do?"

"Try to not get killed!" A few seconds later, twelve more creatures burst through the trees. They were a lot taller than us, were humanoid but blue, and seemed to be riding something similar to a horse. Before I could fire at them, the drew bows and quickly dispatched the remaining wolf animals. We stood a few yards away from them, ready to fight or run. I then noticed that they had a tail and long hair, cat-like features, and that their hair seemed to be connected to the horse creatures somehow. They started speaking in some unknown language, and seemed to gesturing for us to follow them. They were still holding bows and we had seen how fast they could shoot.

"Stand down. I don't think they're trying to kill us right now. ARC, do you have any reference to this language?" I asked as we started following them. They stayed on their horses and kept their bows nearby. I could tell they were wary of us.

"I have managed to match the audio with a rather large file from before the accident. I am integrating the information to your brain now"

"Wait, you can do that? Ow!"

"Integration complete. Of course I can do that. I am synced to your neural pathways. I would expect some headaches until you get used to the new information, it may have crossed with your pain receptors. Brains are tricky things to mess with. "

"Okay, just don't do it again without permission or at least telling me. "

"Yes sir. Protocols updated. "

We kept following the natives to wherever they were taking us. I checked the watch map and saw that we were going in the direction of the big tree we had decided to go to a few days ago. They didn't speak any until it got dark, and then the information ARC had put in my head came to good use. I could understand them and speak fluently. It was cool, but also frightening. If ARC could add a language to my mind without any problem, what could stop him from doing any number of other things?

"We will stop here for the night. Set up your camp. Tomorrow we will arrive at Hometree." I heard the unknown language, but my brain automatically translated it into english so I could understand it better.

"ARC, if I talk to them, will it automatically be translated into their language?"

"It should translate into Na'vi automatically. "

"Na'vi? Is that what they're called?"

"It is the name of their language, but the species seems to have a different name. "

"Okay. Thanks ARC. " The rest of us set up camp and rested for the night, taking turns on watch. The people here may have helped us, but I still didn't trust them completely. They kept two people awake, one watching us and another watching the perimeter and took turns. ARC analyzed the way they walked, talked, and behaved and determined bone structure, their chain of command, and how they connected to the horses. The whole thing was amazing how this species changed everything else to suit them while still having no electricity, a number system, or anything else Atlantis used in its day to day operation.

Suddenly I was in a different place, aboard the ship _Resilience_. It was kind of like a dream, with the sound delayed slightly, only being able to move sluggishly, and only seeing or hearing the important parts. Everyone was yelling and running, and red lights were flashing all over the place. I tried to listen to what they were saying.

_"It's too much! We're going to overload it!"_

_ "How long to the other side?"_

_ "Atomic Diverter at 80% functionality!"_

_ "What happens if we stop the burn in the planet?"_

_ "We're too close to the core and we've already lost light speed! The ship slowed down to take enough energy to the atomic diverter before I knew what was happening!"_

_ "Get to the other side of the planet and stop for repairs. "_

_ "Atomic Diverter at 50% functionality!" There was a crash as the right half of the ship was torn off. _

_ "We lost the Atomic Diverter! Everyone to the main cargo hold!"_

And then I woke up. I was lying on the ground outside of my tent and looking up at the trees. Sunlight was starting to filter through the leaves. I sat up and looked around. I was still in the same spot I had been in when the dream had started. Charlie was sitting up too, and he had been on watch with me when the dream had begun.

"Sir? Do you think...?"

"Yes. _Resilience_ and her crew are dead. "


	8. Acceptance- chp7

_I think that this chapter is pretty good and fits in well. Enjoy, I guess. _

We arrived at the big tree late around noon, and saw many other of the blue creatures living their and riding the horses, and even saw a few on top of flying creatures. ARC said that they connected their brains and controlled the animals telepathically and created a bond with them. In the village, a lot of the others stared at us and whispered amongst themselves. When we entered the tree through an arch, the guards that had been with us on the journey here left, and twelve new guards joined us and took us to the center of the tree where someone was waiting. It looked to be their leader since he had different markings and clothes than everyone else.

"I have found files on four of the people here. The clan leader in front of you is named Olo'eyktan, the heir on your right is named Tsu'tey. The woman on the right of the leader is their shaman of sorts, she goes by Mo'at. The next tribal shaman is on your left and is called Netiri. I also found the clan name, the Omaticaya"

"Where are you getting all of this information from?"

"It's from a large file from before the time machine. I'll let you know if I discover more useful information. "

"Okay. thanks ARC. " The people ARC had called Tsu'tey and Olo'eyktan were talking, but I couldn't hear them. After a little bit, Mo'at joined the conversation. Netiri stayed where she was, just watching us. They talked for a bit, probably deciding whether or not to kill us, and then the clan leader turned to us.

"What are your names?"

I figured if we were gonna get help, we would have to trust them. The rest of the group didn't have the language integrated in yet, so I was the only spokesperson. "My name is John Smith. The people behind me are named Gabe Oldriech, Ben Freeman, Abigail Woods, Catherine Sharp, and May Mengher. "

"How do you know our language?"

Here I decided not to tell the truth. "I don't know. Maybe you know our language. "

"Why were you traveling to us?"

"We needed to find a place to set up a base to restart the species, and this place seemed like a good place to do so, but we can leave since your already here. " The person ARC had called Mo'at approached us. She circled us and stopped in front of me. She drew a small knife from her necklace and went to prick me with it, but I whirled over two paces, formed a sword and shield, and stood defensively. The dozen guards raised their bows at us. I knew if a fight broke out and we managed to get out of the tree, we would still have to get through the village, and the other Omaticaya would probably attack us, which would make escape impossible. I dissolved my sword and shield and walked back to where I was before.

"Where did those come from? How did you do that?" This was the leader.

"Us Atlantians have the ability to shape and manipulate water. We can all do that. " Mo'at went to the leader and they began to talk again. After a few minutes, the leader stepped up to me.

"You may stay with us and live here until your kind has grown and we will teach you about the forest, but you will have to change your ways to survive here. You got lucky when you were attacked in the forest. "

"I appreciate your offer and accept, but we need to go to our shuttle to gather more supplies and bury our dead comrades. "

"You may leave tomorrow to do so. In the meantime, Tsu'tey will lead you to a place where you may live. I will send over six warriors in an hour to gauge your fighting skills. "

"Thank you sir. " Tsu'tey led us up a spiral staircase in the middle of the tree to the top part of the tree. It had a nice view, but we were tired when we got up there.

"Here. This is your place. " He pointed to a group of hammocks hanging from the branches. I noticed that they were not sized for us, but would fit the Omaticaya well.

"Thank you Tsu'tey. " He left and we started to organize our stuff.

"Sir, how did you know their language?" That was Catherine. She was always the most straightforward.

"Oh yeah, ARC found a file on it and put it in my head, or something like that. ARC, send the file to them. "

"Sending file. File sent. " They all paused as their ARCs integrated the information. Once it was complete, we finished putting all of our stuff in an extra hammock. We kept the stuff we would need tomorrow in the backpacks. This included paracord, rations, and our basic survival kits. I added an eight inch knife to my belt and started to recharge the rifles. They could charge from solar, but it just took a long time. A few minutes after we finished putting everything away, three large lizard-birds flew up from below, while three other people came up the stairs. This must be the six warriors we had been told about.

"Defensive positions. Don't use pistols, just power and knives. " We all scattered to different parts of the tree and made a shield and sword or drew our knife. I chose to make a sword and shield. The flying creatures hovered and took aim with their bows while the three from the staircase began to charge. I ran to meet them, making bands around my arms and legs as I approached. At the last moment, I jumped up and dispelled my sword and shield. used used the bands to get extra height. I went over the first person, flipped upside down and touched the back of his neck with my finger, spreading ice around him and freezing him solid to the tree, making sure he could still breathe. I finished the jump and drew my knife as soon as I landed on the branch. The other two jumped to other branches to get around me.

The three people on the flying creatures landed and charged me. The other Atlantians were fighting with two other Omaticaya. I turned to face the three others. They all stopped and raised their bows about twenty feet away from me, too far for me to cover before they shot, but close enough to have a chance. I ran towards them, and then went under the branch, freezing my feet to the branch to keep from falling off. I came up the other side of the branch right in front of them. I froze two before the other one fired his bow at me. I leaned out of the way and reached out my left hand and caught the arrow, making an inch thick patch of ice in its path to slow it down before I grabbed it. Even after that, it still stung my hand. I slashed upwards with the knife, but it was blocked by another. I dropped the arrow and grabbed the knife handle with both handles to keep it from being pushed back. We held the position for a little bit before I twisted the knife, letting his fall suddenly. I stepped back and blasted him with hail, surprising him stunning him. Once I finished, I leapt up and kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards toward the stairs. I looked back quickly and saw that the rest of the Atlantians had frozen the other two Omaticaya. I turned to face the last one. I pointed my knife at him as he rose several feet away. He nodded and went down the stairs.

"Let them go. We passed. " I told the others. The frozen Omaticaya left and we continued to set up camp.


	9. The survivor- chp8

_In this chapter, I add another character and a lesson from the Omaticaya. Next chapter I'll finish the cliffhanger, but in the meantime, if you feel like you are really connecting with the characters, it may be beneficial to play Memories by Maroon 5. _

It's been a week since we first met the natives in the attack from the wild animals, and we had just arrived at the shuttle wreckage with two guides. I sent Gabe, Abigail and May to get the top two plasma turrets detached and salvaged from the front of the ship. The others and I went to dig a grave. Once the plasma turrets were detached and operational, we used it to burn a hole in the bottom of the ship so we could get into the pod bay. Once it was open, we could see that the interior was filled with ice, with someone sitting on the floor, hurt, but alive.

"Paul! You're alive!" I said. He looked up weakly and then collapsed completely. "May! Get the medipads!" Medipads were basically big bandages that accelerated healing. I grabbed Paul and took him out of the pod bay and lay him on the ground. His injuries were a lot worse than ours had been. May started applying medipads and antiseptic while the rest of us watched, not wanting to get in the way.

"He'll live, but it'll take at least three days before we can bring him back to Hometree. In the meantime, we'll have to stay here until he's ready to move, " May said.

"So there's nothing else we can do?" I asked.

"Not to speed up the healing process, no. "

"Alright. Then let's get back to the ship and get what we can use. " We all went back to salvaging, while Ben and I started moving the dead soldiers into the grave. I removed the dog tags as they were placed in. We filled the hole and made the Atlantian seal over it, an X with a vertical line through the center. On top of the center, I placed their dog tags. After that was done, we took all of the supplies from the pod bay and the supplies the other had gathered from the front of the ship and organized it inside the ship, mostly consisting of survival kits, light rifles, pistols, rations, two holo projectors, and a few other heavy weaponry.

We got the shield generator operational and turned it on to keep out wild animals and set the plasma cannons to patrol around the camp, and spent the next few days trying to repair the shuttle. Once Paul was better, we loaded up the plasma cannons with our gear and headed back to Hometree. Several of the plasma cannons' hover domes were destroyed in the crash, but we had managed to repair the legs so they could walk back to the tree. We took some extra rations and a mechanics tool set back and got to the tree a few days later.

"Welcome back, Atlantians. I see you have found another survivor. How was your trip?" Tsu'tey asked.

"We found some more supplies if we need it, but the shuttle is beyond repair. It might do short flights, but it won't be able to take us away from here. " I replied.

He nodded. "I need your group to meet at the stream in an hour. " He glanced at the plasma cannons. "Good luck getting everything up. " He left us and headed off in a different direction.

"ARC, send the plasma cannons up the stairs with all of our gear. We'll unpack later. "

"Yes sir, " ARC replied. We set all of our backpacks on the cannon, but kept our supply belts with a pistol, knife, and three grenades. Once they were loaded up, the cannons started walking up to our living place with Paul since he didn't know the language yet, while everyone else headed to the stream. I found Olo'eyktan and told him that Paul did not know the language, but we would teach him in our spare time.

"Why does he not know this language?"

"He was not taught it. We will teach him though, but it will take several weeks at least while he heals before he can converse without a translator. "

"He can learn while he heals, but we cannot teach him until he knows the language. "

"Thank you Olo'eyktan. " I left and went to meet the rest of the group at the stream.

"Hello John. I am Hund'ri, and I have been tasked with teaching your group about the planet. Today I was planning on covering some of the edible foods. Where is the other one that came back today?" Hund'ri was one of the higher ranking Omaticaya and had been friendly to us from the start.

"Paul does not know the language, but he will learn. Until then, we will teach him what you tell us. "

"Some lessons can only be learned from experience. "

"Then we will give him experience once he is healed. "

"Okay. Well, let's get started then. I can provide examples to take back to Paul if you like. "

"Thank you Hund'ri. "

After the day was over, we arrived at our area and found Paul wearing an ARC and rewiring what looked to have once been a hover dome.

"Paul? How does that ARC work for you? It was synced to neural passages, and only the bridge crew got those. "

He looked up at me. "ARC? Oh, the earpiece? One of the bridge crew members was my twin brother. I think I understand the language now though. This hoverdome should work now. The wiring was just knocked around a little in the crash. "

"Okay. How are you feeling? Hund'ri said this might plant help as a painkiller. "

"I'm mostly healed, it doesn't hurt much anymore, it's just hard to move certain ways. I spent two weeks in the dark healing, so the only injuries I have are hunger and a few bruises. "

"That's good. What else has the ARC done for you?"

"I know the names of the two leaders and the next pair of leaders and the person who taught you today. I was also able to see the botany lesson you got today, so I'm all caught up with the lessons and stuff. I can go to them tomorrow if you like. "

"Yes, that's good. "

"Sir, I have uncovered a critical piece of information. You need to see this now " Said my ARC.

"Send it to the others and tell them to review it, " I said.

"Already done sir. "

"Good. Show it to me then"


	10. The arrival- chp9

_This chapter covers a lot of time and ends about a year before Jake lands on Pandora. Hope you like it and enjoy. _

"I have uncovered coordinates for a landing site the humans will use in two years. This site will be used as a base for mining operations for a rare metal. The data also depicts remotely controlled creatures similar to the Omaticaya, but also human. A blend between the two DNA strands. They are meant to find a diplomatic solution and make the Omaticaya leave Hometree so they can mine here. If they don't move, they will send in air units to force out the natives, " ARC said.

"You said if they don't move. Why is that?"

"I have no data on whether or not they moved. "

"By just being here we are changing the past. How can we minimize our influence here to make the most use out of our current information? "

"_Hope_ is still in orbit, but has no breathable air. We need to activate the cloaking shield on board and hide the shuttle crash. _Hope_ will notify us if another ship enters orbit, but it has no crew to man the guns if it is hostile. "

"How do we get up to _Hope_? The shuttle is destroyed, and we have no space suits to use on _Hope_. "

"I have control of all systems on _Hope_, and have found a repair vehicle that can bring people up to _Hope_ and back, and it has two space suits on board. . I estimate that it will take two days to fix the cloaking shield. "

"At least something is going right. We'll do it in a few weeks. Notify the others. "

"Yes sir. "

"Alright everyone, it's getting late, and we need to be up early tomorrow, so get some sleep. Paul, are you joining us tomorrow?" I asked.

"Yep, " He replied.

"Good. See you in the morning. "

Over the next several months, we learned more about the planet and the wildlife on it. We had managed to activate the cloaking shield on the shuttle and on _Hope_, and had been accepted to the clan as much as we could be without being part of their species. We couldn't ride their horses or fly their bird things, but our powers had grown exponentially and we could get around just fine without the animals. We had made our own bows and arrows and knives, and embraced their religion, but had not yet been allowed to their sacred places. The plasma cannons had been moved to another place several miles away where we planned to build houses later. It was about noon when they arrived.

"Sir, _Hope_ has detected a large ship entering orbit. Origin is human. They're here a year ahead of schedule, " ARC said.

"Activate cloaking shields on _Hope_ and the shuttle. Tell the others to meet at the base of Hometree, and send them the information too, " I replied.

"Yes sir. Two have already arrived, but Gabe and Paul are hunting. It will be a while until they meet you. "

"Connect them to a secure radio sequence, one the humans aren't on. "

"Done. " I arrived at Hometree and saw the other four Atlantians waiting.

"Gabe and Paul will be here soon. In the meantime, we need to do recon on the shuttle when it lands. Gabe and Paul will move our supplies from here to the camp and then meet us at the landing site. Stay away from contact and keep your radios on. Security level red again. Good luck. " We left Hometree and headed to the landing site.

"Ship is landing in fifteen minutes, " ARC said. We continued traveling, going as fast as we could using bands around our arms and legs and flying just above the trees. It took three hours to get to the landing site, and by that time it was dark, which was good for us. The site had already been cleared and had lights set up around the perimeter spreading light everywhere. I smiled inwardly. The humans knew nothing about the planet, and were just getting started.

I signaled to the others and we moved in and spread out. I had found a scope at the shuttle, and I used it to look closer at the landing site. They had begun to put up a barbed wire fence and establish a perimeter, but I knew it would be ineffective against the wilderness here.

"Alpha this is Gamma and Foxtrot, we are landing now. All gear has been moved to auxiliary camp. " Gamma and Foxtrot were the security level red callsigns for Gabe and Paul.

"Good. Stay silent and use radios as little as possible, and be careful, " I replied. We all got as close as we could without being seen and looked into the camp. Ben made his way towards me.

"We could kill them all now and not have to deal with any of this, " Ben suggested.

"No, let's wait it out and see what they do. They may not be hostile. If we can just keep them away from our ships, they won't even know we're here, which will give us a tactical advantage if it comes to war, " I answered.

Ben nodded. "Makes sense. Are we going to stay the night or leave now? I should find some food if we're staying. "

"The rest of you go back, I need to see what they have in the way of weapons. "

"Yes sir. I'll round up the rest of us and head back. Be careful. "

Ben rounded up the others and they silently left back to Hometree. I flew over the lights and hovered above the camp, looking for a good place to drop in. I flew over to their shuttle and dropped in right next to it after a squad of troops went past. They had small arms, but I could hear heavy machines from the shuttle. I crept to the opening and looked in. Inside was mostly construction equipment, but there were several large suits inside. Atlantis used to use them when the Mundars first came, but they were ineffective so they were discontinued. These models were airtight and I noticed that everyone was wearing rebreather units, so the oxygen content must have been too low for them. I leapt into the shuttle when nobody was around and found a computer. I took the ARC cable and plugged it in.

"ARC, download all data. We'll sort it out at Hometree, " I instructed it.

"Data downloaded, " ARC replied after a few seconds. I unplugged it and explored the ship. They had enough materials to build a small compound, but I was sure more would come. The armory was huge, and had lots of the suits, turrets, and handheld weapons. I grabbed a six barreled machine gun full of ammunition and continued on my way. I heard footsteps coming my way, so I quickly jumped and touched the ceiling with my hands and froze them there, then swung my feet up and froze them as well. The gun dangled below me on its strap, and I pulled it up as well. A squad of troops passed under me and began to pick up boxes of weapons. While they were busy, I slipped through the door and dropped to the floor and continued on my way. I found the cockpit of the ship and found it empty. I looked around and found a schedule, which I flipped through, letting ARC document it all.

I found another storage bay and found tons of mining equipment, as well as construction vehicles. Suddenly the lights turned on and people began entering the storage bay. I ran under a large bulldozer and climbed into the mechanics, letting ARC guide me to a safe spot. There was not a lot of grease on it, which meant it was brand new. It turned on and rumbled, and began to roll forward. It drove out of the shuttle and into the center of the compound. I was surrounded by people and bright light, and it was getting hard to tell where I was. The bulldozer stopped and turned off, as well as the others as the pulled together in a tight group. I waited until nobody was close and then dropped out of the vehicle.

I landed softly and looked around. All of the large equipment was rolling together to form a circle where I guessed the first part of camp would be set up. I ran to the back of the vehicle, staying in the shadows. All of the soldiers were headed into the circle, which was bad for me. I looked around and located the generator. I focused a little and made a stick of ice by the generator. I moved it to where I wanted it and used it to turn off the generator. The lights turned off and everyone was plunged into darkness. In the few seconds before the handheld lights flick on, I flew out of the camp and was headed back to Hometree.


	11. Surveillance report- chp10

_This chapter is a bit shorter than they've normally been, but I just decided to finish it so I could start on the next chapter. _

I returned to Hometree late at night, but technically early morning, and met with the others.

"What are we up against, John?" May asked.

"They have lots of weapons. I grabbed this as an example for the Omaticaya, but they have lots of suits similar to the ones used in the beginning of the war against the Mundars. ARC downloaded all the information on the ship and I flipped through a schedule, but I think they will have a large compound in three months and more ships will arrive soon, probably with more troops and material, " I said, pulling off the machine gun I'd taken from the ship.

"What do you think they'll do?"

"I don't know, but I hope they at least listen. "

"Is _Hope_ going to be alright?"

"_Hope_ is cloaked and on a different orbit than their ship, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem or in any danger. "

"What should we do now, John?"

"Right now we need to sleep. Tomorrow we will tell the Omaticaya. "

In the morning we went down to the base of Hometree and met with Ole'eyktan and told him about the humans. I showed him the gun, but didn't fire it inside Hometree.

"How long until they are a threat?" He asked.

"They already have a decent sized army, but are a little low on air units. If you were to attack them now you could kill them all, but I don't know if they mean harm to you yet. "

"Do you speak their language?"

"Yes, and we can teach your people if you want that. "

"No, but we may need an intermediary to speak to them. I want you to take three scouts to keep tabs on them. Every day I want one of your people to go to the site and get a report from the scouts and return. "

"Yes Ole'eyktan. Should I return the weapon to them?"

"Tonight, but don't get seen. I want you to show me what the weapon does before you return it. "

"Follow me then. I don't want to use it inside of Hometree. " We left the inside of Hometree and went a quarter mile into the forest. I set up an ice target that mimicked the structure of an Omaticaya and went back a hundred feet or so. I took aim at the target and fired three rounds. When we returned to the target, it was shattered and the bullets were embedded in the tree behind it. Ole'eyktan nodded.

"Return the weapon so they don't suspect anything, but maybe sabotage something while you are there. Good luck. "

"Yes sir. " An hour later I was taking three scouts to the landing site. Once we got there, I let them down and waited until it was dark. I noticed that they were moving a lot faster than I had thought they would. They had finished the barbed wire fence and were beginning to build a concrete wall around the compound and had temporary buildings up already.

Once it was dark, I snuck in and replaced the machine gun where I found it. On the way out I disconnected a few connectors on several of the construction vehicles, and then left the camp without being seen. I made sure the scouts knew to stay out of sight and returned to Hometree before morning. When I arrived, Catherine was still awake.

"What did I miss while I was gone?" I asked.

"Nothing, really. Ole'eyktan set up a scout rotation and Ben set up our travel rotation to the scouts, " she replied.

"That's good. Tomorrow we will move to the camp a few miles away. Ole'eyktan wants us to be a secret weapon if it comes to war. "

"I heard about that. Will we still come over during the day?"

"Most of the time, yes. If humans are seen close to Hometree we'll steer clear for at least the rest of the day. "

"Okay. Sounds good. See you in the morning. "


	12. Almost compromised- chp11

_I haven't added a chapter in a while, but hopefully I will start doing it more often now that I have extra time. If you like it or have a suggestion, leave a comment please. _

The human encampment grew quickly. Just after a few months, they had established a few mining camps. Their initial landing site had stayed and been quickly fortified. We think they had seen some of the Omaticaya because they had constant surveillance on their perimeter. Once the second ship landed, the camp changed dramatically. Scientists arrived on that ship, and quickly set up labs and ventured into the forest on several occasions. Soon after the ship landed, a new leader on the ship took troops into the forest, as well as a few scientists. Mostly infantry, but a few armored suits, about the size of a small platoon.

"Sir, live feed from _Hope_ indicates that soldiers are entering the forest and are on a course for our shuttle crash. Numbers are about ten suits, fifty soldiers, and ten unarmed civilians, probably scientists, " ARC said. It was the day the second ship landed and early in the morning, about 0730.

"Alert the others. Get them to the shuttle crash, " I said.

"Yes sir. "

I was at hometree, and I needed some help. "Ole'eyktan, humans are headed to our shuttle crash. If they find it, their weapons will become more powerful and we will no longer be a secret weapon. I would like to request thirty or forty of your warriors to protect the shuttle and drive away the humans. "

He thought about it and answered. "How long until they reach the shuttle?"

"Three or four hours. "

"Send whoever you need. "

"Thank you sir. " I rounded up three dozen warriors, including Tsu'tey. I needed him as another leader and to help organize the others. We ran to the shuttle crash, meeting up with the other six Atlantians there.

"Sir, ARC has tapped their suits. Their GPS says two hours until they arrive. " Paul said. The cloaking shield on the shuttle was still on, but if they crossed through the barrier they would see the crash immediately. We couldn't let the do that.

"Alright, we need to stop them before they reach the shuttle. We'll intercept them a few miles away from here. Bows and knives only, we can't give away that we're here. We'll all start from above them, and when they pass below we'll shoot them and then the Omaticaya will descend and attack them. Try to hit the suits in the first volley. Aim for the human inside of the cockpit. We don't have to kill them all, just chase them away. " Everyone agreed and we traveled to meet them.

We set up in four trees besides a path we predicted they would travel through, and waited. When they arrived, they found a footprint we had left behind on purpose. It was Omaticaya, and we knew the scientists would stop to examine it. I signalled to the others and began to count down. On zero, we all fired in unison. After the first volley, there was chaos amongst the soldiers below.

Only one of the suits were left, and about fifteen soldiers were lying dead. I signalled for a second final volley. The second volley killed four of the scientists and another twenty of the soldiers. The Omaticaya leaped down from the trees and attacked with their knives. It was a short fight, resulting in a full retreat from the humans. They had lost nine suits, four scientists, and about 40 soldiers. The remaining were running to their base. We had lost nobody, and our only injuries were a few glancing bullets, which we were able to quickly heal with some medipads from the shuttle.

"Thank you for helping us, Tsu'tey, " I said.

"Your welcome John, I just hope you weren't sighted. Right now, you are our best defense against the humans. " He replied.

"We'll be able to clean up here. You can go back to hometree now while we take care of everything here. " He nodded and left with the Omaticaya towards hometree.

After they left, I turned to the Atlantians. "Alright, let's get the human's weapons and bury them. After that we'll track them to make sure they don't try to loop around us. " They all agreed and we began to get everything useful we could from the humans. We got lots of weapons and several rations, but the most interesting thing was the masks all of the humans were wearing. They were breathing apparatuses, which meant that humans couldn't breathe this air. I looked in the bags of the scientists and found lots of samples. I knew that most of them had no special use, but a few of them were food or medicine. I left the bags and continued to scavenge. We put all of the supplies in the shuttle and dug a mass grave for the dead.

After all of that was done, we tracked the remaining humans and found that they had made it back to base. There were lots of people on the perimeter and a lot of commotion inside. We left confident our existence was still a secret, and arrived at hometree about 1830. After a quick chat with Ole'eyktan, we went upstairs to our area and watched the human encampment from _Hope_ satellite feed.


	13. Hybrids- chp12

_Yeh, so this chapter just introduces the avatars. Enjoy, I guess. _

After the first scout group returned, no more were sent out of sight of the encampment walls. They began clearing away around the base to increase sight range, and we were forced to pull out our scouts before they were discovered. Once that was done, satellites began to appear in orbit. _Hope_ was still cloaked, but we had to alter her orbit twice to keep it from colliding with the human's satellites. A third rocket was about to land at the human's base, but it malfunctioned before entering the atmosphere and was sent spiralling into space mostly intact, to crash on Pandora's planet. The base on the surface continued to grow. Soon after, they sent out four groups to mining camps. Soon after, they began sending rockets back to earth. We checked the manifest, and it was labeled as unobtainium, and was most likely what was being mined.

Soon after they sent the first rocket back, another landed. Once they had first set up mining camps, the Omaticaya did not appreciate it and would sometimes attack convoys returning from or going to mining camps. After the first three days of these attacks, they were always heavily guarded. About two weeks after the last rocket had landed, a building was built outside of the compound, close to the edge of the woods. About a month after that, we saw something strange.

It was, upon first glance, an Omaticaya. But upon closer inspection, it looked somewhat human. They had some of the human characteristics that were good for almost anywhere, as well as the features that favored the Omaticaya in this world. They were first sighted from _Hope_, blue figures seen from above in the human camp. At first we suspected they were prisoners, but we had no missing people. Ole'eyktan suggested that they might be from another tribe, but that was unlikely as the nearest tribe was too far away to find the human base by accident, or on purpose. Both of these were immediately disproven because no one had ever seen another Omaticaya like that.

A month after the first sighting, scouting parties were sent into the jungle again, but they were the hybrids. One time I followed them into the jungle, using a personal cloak device from _Hope_ to remain undetected. They had been taken by helicopter to an area close to Hometree and landed. From there the helicopter was left, as well as the human pilot, and they walked towards Hometree.

"ARC, what are those?" I asked.

"Visual analysis suggests Human-Na'vi hybrid. References to this creature are limited, but they seem to be code-named Avatar. "

"Your reference is pre-time failure, right?"

"Correct. "

"Okay. Well, see if you can figure out anything else about them. "

"They seem to be linked to a location inside their landing site. I can't tap into it. The signals vary immensely. "

"Any similarities to anything like the Mundars?"

"No, but they seem to be similar to brain signals. I think that these hybrids are being remotely controlled. "

"Is that possible?"

"It was thought so, but apparently not. This technology is just like controlling a ROV, you use a controller to control the robot, only in this case, they made the controller the human, and the robot the hybrid. "

The humans kept walking towards Hometree, sometimes collecting samples. I kept following them, staying in the trees above them. After a little bit, a group of Omaticaya met them. I stayed cloake and made sure that the other Atlantians knew to stay away. The Omaticaya were armed and ready to shoot the human hybrids and kept trying to talk to them, but they both spoke different languages. The language on Atlantis had been Galactic Standard, which was a dialect of english and very similar.

"What are you doing here? Who are you? " asked the Omaticaya. The hybrids had no idea what they were saying, but the fact that they had bows pointed at them showed their intent clearly. One of them stepped forward.

"We mean no harm, " He said in english. The Omaticaya had only heard english spoken by the Atlantians, but none of them understood it. The Omaticaya realised that to communicate with humans, they would first need to break the language barrier. They warded them away back to their helicopter, and from there they returned to their encampment.

After the humans left, I disabled the cloaking device and met with the Omaticaya who had stopped the humans.

"Hello John. What do you think of humans so far? They seem like they want something from us, but nobody knows what, " Hund'ri said. He had taken over a small military position after we finished learning about the biology on Pandora.

"I don't know. If they decided to come in with all of their weapons and armor, they could very well kill everyone here. It's best we stay on their good side, but maintain clear boundaries so they can't push us around a lot, " I replied.

"Well, I hope we stay on their good side then. Most of that is up to Ole'eyktan. "

"Yes. he is a good leader. He won't attack without cause, but will defend the tribe at all costs. "

"Hopefully the cost isn't too high. "


	14. 2nd Surveillance Report- chp13

_Normally this is where I would sum up the chapter, but I don't really want to this time so I'm just gonna let you read it if you want to. Have fun. _

It's been only three days since the first group of hybrids encountered the Omaticaya, and already more were appearing. They kept venturing into the forest, mainly to collect samples or survey land, but they kept trying to interact with the Omaticaya. They have shown no aggressive behavior towards us yet, but none of them have been soldiers. Only scientists have been in the bodies, and we have studied them whenever they enter the forest.

"Sir, I've run some simulations on the hybrids,"said ARC, " and would like to gather more information on them. All information on them from before the accident has been corrupted or destroyed. If we could infiltrate the camp again and download the data there, it would allow me to more fully understand these hybrids. I also think that the information could help us. "

"How do you think it would help us?" I asked. I was currently at our auxiliary camp, trying to calibrate our broken holoprojector from the shuttle's bridge.

"One of the ways it would help is by updating our limited information on our enemy. It will tell us how many hybrids there are and what they are doing, as well as their military abilities. The information we acquired the first time is already outdated and was proven inaccurate. "

"Okay. I guess it couldn't hurt. We'll drop in tonight. Tell the others I'll be back late. "

"Yes sir. "

I reached under the holoprojector and moved a few wires around to get to the circuit boards. I found a disconnected wire and plugged it in. an image appeared, but it was shorter than it should've been, and the left side was a few inches lower than the right. I sighed and continued to troubleshoot.

I had arrived at the human camp an hour before dark. A building outside the wall was mostly completed, and some workers were beginning to clean up. I was in the forest, observing this building. A worker had missed the truck back inside the camp and was left to lock up everything. I waited until the lights were turned off and went up to the building, waiting for the worker to come around the corner to lock the back door. As soon as he came around I quickly knocked him out and got him behind the building before the guards on the wall could see. I took his keys, communicators, and keycard and locked him in the building. I froze all of the locks and doorknobs so he couldn't get out for a while if he woke up. I muted the communicators and took out the batteries, leaving them outside the building.

I flew up using the bands we used to get around now, and found a dark area of the camp. I dropped in quickly and looked around. It was a storage yard with construction supplies. No cameras were here, but they were probably elsewhere. I found an entry point and opened the door to an airlock. I had left my bow at Hometree in favor of a light pistol and a personal cloaking device. Indoors it would be hard to draw back the bow in tight spaces. Once I was through the airlock, I wandered around looking for a usb plugin. Once I found one, I would be able to use a wireless flash drive from the shuttle to transmit all the files to ARC. All that remained now was to find one.

A few minutes later, a squad of guards ran down the hall to the airlock I had entered from. I was able to duck into a side room before they saw me. Cloaking devices were best used at distances more than 20 or 30 feet. Much closer and the average person can tell that something was different about the patch of wall or whatever was behind me, and would probably figure out what was going on and catch me. I looked around in the room as the guards passed and saw I was in a server control room. I found a usb port easily and plugged in the flash drive.

"Downloading data. This is getting interesting already. Just a few more minutes and we'll be good to go, " said ARC.

"Good, I don't need to be caught in here, " I said. A few minutes later the troop of guards came back down the hall and passed the door, oblivious I was there.

"Download complete. Let's go, " ARC said after some time.

"On my way out already, " I replied, while grabbing the flash drive and replacing everything as it was before. I exited the room and was able to get back to the airlock I entered, and exit the building without incident. Once I was in the open air again I flew back to Hometree with new knowledge on the human's activity.


	15. Proxies- chp14

_In this chapter I show where the Atlantians are going to get most of their troops in later chapters. Next chapter will probably skip a few years. _

"Alright ARC, what are we up against?" I asked. It was morning, the day after I had snuck into the human compound and downloaded all their data in their computers.

"In military terms, they have a surprisingly large force for being so far away from earth," replied ARC, "Enough to take out the Omaticaya and level Hometree about three and a half times over. The main thing they are lacking is artillery. None of their weapons are suited for long range combat. If they want to fight, they have to come to us. Satellite surveillance is surprisingly advanced for how long they've been here.

That's their military, but one of the interesting things is that most, if not all, of their funding comes from a mineral they are mining here called unobtanium. Because of this, most of their supplies are for mining. Plans show that Hometree is high on their target list for mining. Anyways, the hybrids they are using are called Avatars, and they function almost exactly the same as the Proxies from the beginning of the war with the Mundars. "

"The Proxies? But only the most advanced Atlantians could do that, " I said. The Proxies were an elite force of powerful Atlantians. The reason they were the best fighters we had was because they created Proxies, which were whatever they wanted, and were controlled by them while in an unconscious state. The best part of this was that the Proxies were made out of ice or water, and could be remade almost instantly at the nearest water source. The downside was that if the Proxy was injured in a way that would kill an Atlantian, the Proxy would become just water and disappear. However, they could not be tortured if caught, bleed out, and could heal themselves quickly. The Proxy controllers had been killed seven months after the Mundars landed by an Atlantian version of an ICBM, which the Mundars had captured and used against us.

"I know sir, but humans can do that now with technology. The good news is that it takes a while to regenerate one of their Avatars, several years actually. They had them ready so quickly because a probe from a few years ago landed on the planet and collided with one of the Omaticaya, which is where they first got the DNA. Also, none of the Avatars are going to be created for soldiers, so that's good for us if it comes to war. "

"Good to know. Anything else that you found?"

"I've run several simulations, and the results of such lead me to believe that you and the others are capable of controlling Proxies. "

"Proxies? Plural Proxies? We've never tried anything like that!"

"I know sir, but you never know until you try. "

"Alright, I'll try it. Give me a minute. " I sat down, cleared my mind, and closed my eyes. I pictured myself as a Proxy, made of ice and water. After a few minutes, I opened my eyes to see that I had managed to create the body of a Proxy, but I was still sitting on the ground in my normal body. I sighed and stood up. I examined the sculpture and found that it looked like me, only made of ice. I took some plants, crushed them up to make red, yellow, and blue colors. I opened a piece in the back and poured them in. After moving them around with water currents I was able to put color in it, so that it looked even more like me. A short time later I realised that I wasn't keeping the colors in place but, they weren't moving anyways.

"ARC? What's going on?"

"I don't know sir, I've never seen anything like it. "

A few minutes later, I was still trying to figure out what was happening. It was keeping itself from melting, and I was maintaining its form, even when I snapped off a finger, a new one formed within seconds. "What are you?" I asked aloud, mainly talking to myself.

"I am you sir, " I heard from somewhere. It sounded like me, but I wasn't speaking. I walked to the front of the figure.

"What?" I asked.

"I am you sir, " this time I saw the mouth move, but the speech wasn't coming from the figure. It was speaking in my mind like ARC.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I am you sir. "

"Why are you not just dissipating like anything I make and leave?"

"You attempted to make a Proxy, but instead you made a Program. " Programs were legendary even from before the Atlantian population got too large for our powers to support them. They were like Proxies, but self-thinking and most of them duplicated their creator's personality. Most of them even had a limited range of powers, but it diminished their creator's.

"How good are you at combat?"

"As good as you are sir. "

"Let's try a quarterstaff duel. " I made a simple staff and took a combat position. The program did the same.

"Ready?"

"Ready. "

"Begin. " After several minutes of fighting, neither of us had hit each other. Every move I made he blocked, and every attack he made I recognized and could block easily. After a short while, I was beginning to tire, and my defense was flagging. Almost immediately after, I began to take hits. I kept trying my best, but I couldn't block them all. I refused to yield, but I knew I couldn't win. A low sweeping strike knocked me off my feet and I hit my head on a root, blacking out.

I awoke immediately after and rolled over to avoid any followthrough attacks, and stood up. I remade my quarterstaff and prepared to defend myself again, but I saw myself on the floor where I had fallen down. Then I realised I had succeeded in making a Proxy.

"Duel is over. Good job, " I said to the program. He nodded and discarded his quarterstaff, and then dispersed himself back into the air. If I needed him later, I would have to make another one.

I looked at myself on the forest floor. I didn't know how to get back into myself, but after concentrating a little bit I was back in my old body as the Proxy dissipated.

"ARC, get the others to start practicing this. Let's finish looking through the human's data. "

"Yes sir. They will know momentarily. The human's compound is mainly for scientific research and mining, and several more mining camps are going to be set up in a few months. The building outside the compound is set to be a school to teach natives about the humans, and they hope to learn about them too. The main reason for the Avatars is to get the Omaticaya to leave Hometree so they can mine there. "

"That won't work. They'll never leave. "

"I know, and that's why their military is so large here. They can kill anyone who tries to stop them. "

"How long until things get dangerous?"

"Files from before the time machine say about seven years. "

"Alright. Plenty of time to prepare. Let's start by getting all of our technology out of hometree and to the auxiliary camp. "


	16. Resilience- chp15

_This chapter just updates on Resilience and gets us to a recognizable point in time that is seen in the movie so I can coordinate what happens here with what happens in the movie. From here it should get pretty interesting I guess. _

It's been almost 8 years since humans first landed on pandora. In that time, we've been busy preparing for war. We had moved all of our stuff out from hometree, moved our auxiliary camp farther north, completely stripped the shuttle of anything useful, and repaired _Hope_ enough to be airtight in most places. The shuttle was just a hollow shell of a ship, and the fusion generator was moved to auxiliary camp, which was becoming the main camp. _Hope_ wasn't going anywhere soon, as the engines had both been broken and the fusion chamber was still unoperational. We'd fixed a few of the plasma turrets and the shields could hold at 50% for a few minutes, but it was a sitting duck if the Mundars found it. Unless we wanted to fly for several years in a cramped maintenance shuttle, we weren't leaving Pandora any time soon.

"Sir, incoming transmission from _Resilience_, it's several years old since it was sent from several light years away, " ARC said.

"Put it through, " I said, although I probably knew what it was. The mini hologram on my watch lit up and began to play a message. It was the captain of _Resilience_, and he didn't look too good.

"This is _Resilience_! All other ships to divert course immediately! Do not attempt to follow, we are stuck in th-" The audio on the transmission cut out and didnt turn back on. He was saying something, but I couldn't tell what. After a bit, he ended the transmission.

"ARC, send out a signal for _Willpower_. See if they are still alive. "

"Yes sir. " I sighed and continued to go about my day.

A few hours later another transmision arrived, audio only. "_Hope_ and _Willpower_, this is _Resilience_, we are stuck in a planet right now. Our entire crew has either melded with the stone on an atomic level or is in the main cargo hold. We managed to keep the main cargo hold empty of the stone, but we don't have a lot of time. We're about to send the remaining crew into suspended animation. If you get this, please come. The coordinates are 557 alpha 294 bravo and 746 charlie. I don;t know how long the atomic diverter will hold up, but I'm gonna set this to constantly broadcast. If it stops, we're dead. Please hurry. "

"ARC, how long to get there?"

"If we can get _Hope_ to burn, four days. Without, 2 years. "

"Both ways or round trip?"

"Both ways. "

"How long until things get bad down here?"

"I am unsure, sir, it should've happened a year ago. "

"We probably missed the start of it then. We'll stay here until it's over, then head over to _Resilience_. We'll start working on the engines on _Hope_ until then. "

A few days later, it started. I was at Hometree, talking with Hund'ri when someone walked in. It was one of the Avatars. I had never seen one in Hometree before; the Omaticaya never let them close. "Sorry Hund'ri, I gotta go, " I said and ducked behind some foliage. I had left the cloaking suits at camp, and I couldn't risk being seen, so I decided to leave and figure out what had happened in the morning.

The next morning, I found Ole'eyktan right away. "Who was in Hometree last night?"

"That was a dream walker called Jake Sully. He says he was a marine and a warrior of the Jarlan clan. We accepted him to learn about them. How they think, act, and fight. It will help us fight them. We will teach him our ways, and we will learn his. "

"That's a good idea. Should we stay hidden from him? He is still an Avatar, even if he is accepted. "

"You may show yourselves to him, but do not use your powers or gadgets to him. Keep him away from your camp, and don;t let him know what you can do. "

"Yes sir. " I left Hometree and told the others. On my way out from Hometree, I saw where he was training, attempting to ride one of the horse creatures. They had already made him change his human clothes, and he didn't seem to like them that much. I passed quickly and returned to base camp.


	17. The enemy within- chp16

_This chapter I give the humans the knowledge that the Atlantians are there without letting them know much and set up the main plot for next chapter. _

Since the marine had been allowed into Hometree, he had been learning about how the Omaticaya lived and the world around them. He was learning quickly, which was helped by the fact that some of the Omaticaya spoke english; a result of a school that had been shut down two years ago. The same building I had locked a worker in when I snuck into the base for updated information. So far, he has been learning horse riding and how to use their weapons. I had mastered the bow and knife five months after we landed, although the knife was easier to learn because I had used it numerous times on Atlantis, and all I had to do was adjust my technique a bit.

I was at Hometree when the marine saw me. I think he had seen me around a few times, but had never had the time to talk to me. I could understand why he wanted to speak to me. Atlantians looked like humans, although we were slightly taller than average and our eyes were mainly blue or gray.

"Jake Sully. Who might you be?" he said, holding out his hand.

"John Smith. " I replied, shaking his hand.

"What are you doing here with them? I thought I was the first to be allowed in Hometree, " he asked, releasing my hand. Obviously he thought I was a human and had arrived with them on an earlier shuttle.

"I'm not from your camp, " I said.

"Then where are you from? You speak english well. "

"I am not from here, or your earth. "

"Then where from?"

"There, " I said, pointing to the sky in the east, back towards Atlantis.

"You came from the sky?"

"We fell from the sky, but we did not come from there. " Someone in the distance called for him.

"Oh, I gotta go. I'll see ya around. "

"Goodbye. " He turned and left, leaving me alone. I left Hometree and went to the camp for the rest of the day.

Once it was close to dark, I flew to the human camp. A while ago, we realised that by using highly reflective ice crystals, we could reflect light around us and return it to its path without it touching us, effectively making us invisible to the human eye. However, we could not see because no light reached our eyes. To counter this, we had learned to sense water in a way that we could recognize our surroundings. We could easily sense life forms, and could recognize our surroundings easily as well.

I hovered above the camp and dropped in, cloaking myself as I went. I landed by a door and waited for someone to pass by. I was able to duck in behind a soldier coming in and found my way to the room where the Avatars were controlled. There were several places to connect to them, and it seemed that they used beds to hold the bodies while they were in the Avatars.

I waited until they started to exit the beds and then found Jake relatively easily. He looked just like his Avatar, but something I didn't expect was that he couldn't walk. He got into a wheelchair and then was ushered over to a computer where he began a video log. After he finished, he immediately went to two other Avatar controllers and began to talk with them. One was a woman named Grace and the other was a man named Norm.

"Somebody is there with them. I only saw one, but there are seven of them there, " Jake said.

"What do you mean? Humans are there?" asked Grace.

"I thought they would never let us in there, but you're saying that seven humans got in there before we did?" Norm asked.

"I only know what he told me. He looked like a human, but something was off I couldn't tell quite what though. He had some kind of earpiece communicator and wore a watch, so he came from somewhere besides here. He has been with the Omaticaya for some time now, possibly before we arrived. I could tell because they barely notice him now. He's like an equal to them. He could breathe the air here as well, which was really surprsing. "

"What did he tell you?"

"He said he fell from the sky in the east. He says he's not from here or earth. "

"Tomorrow, try to get him to talk to us here. He could really help us with negotiations if the Omaticaya trust him completely, " Norm said.

"I know. I'll ask him to meet you tomorrow around noon about halfway to Hometree. I don't know if you should come in the Avatars or not, but I'll bet Miles will want to send some troops along with you. He wants the Omaticaya to know we have a lot of troops. "

"I don't care what Miles wants, we're not trying to scare them. We're trying to peacefully negotiate the relocation of their home, " Grace said.

"Alright Jake, we're gonna think about this for a bit. You can go grab yourself some food and get some sleep for tomorrow, " Norm said.

Jake left the hookup room and went towards the cafeteria. I followed him, levitating myself above the floor to avoid making noise. Before the cafeteria, he turned left and went into a control room. There were several people sitting at monitors, but in the center was a holoprojector. Looking at it was two men, I could tell one of them was Miles, a colonel in the army, and the other was probably the man from the office in the corner. I looked at the nameplate on the desk and saw that his name was Parker.

"Hey Jake, I thought you got stuck out there. What do you have for me today?" Miles asked.

"Somebody is with them. Seven people, I think. They live with the Omaticaya. I think they came from off world, and not from earth. "

"What do you mean? We've never seen these people before. " Parker asked.

"I mean someone got here before us, and their friends with the Omaticaya. Grace and Norm will meet them tomorrow halfway to Hometree. I told them you might send a troop escort, so that's good cover for you to send someone to check it out, " Jake said.

"Nice work, I'll send a few troops with Grace and Norm tomorrow. " Miles said.

"Thanks. I also surveyed Hometree some, " Jake replied. I had been about to leave, but this was unexpected. Surveying Hometree? Why would he need that?

He manipulated the holoprojector some and pulled up an image of Hometree. It was only satellite footage, and the dimensions were off in some places by twenty feet or so.

"This here, " He said, pointing to the main entrance, "is actually about thirty feet wide, not fifty. "

After a few minutes, most of the scaling errors were fixed, but then I realised what this was for. He was giving them the schematics for Hometree, which would let them be able to easily destroy it. He was giving them a way to destroy Hometree, which meant that the negotiations were probably just a distraction, or were never expected to work. Once they failed, they would bring in their air force and blow up Hometree, whether or not the Omaticaya were still inside. I left quietly, and flew back to base camp once I was out of the building.


	18. Negotiations- chp17

_This chapter is okay I guess. I feel like it could be better and is one of the more boring ones in my opinion. I'm not sure what to do next chapter yet, but I'll think of something eventually. _

It was early the next day when Jake approached me at Hometree. "Hey, John, can you meet some friends of mine later today?" he asked.

"Sure, where will they be?" I asked.

"You know our base, right?"

"Yeah, I know the place. "

"They'll be halfway between here and there at noon. Can you make it?"

"Yeah, I'll be there. "

"Thanks. I'll see you around. " He turned and left to meet Netiri for language lessons.

I stayed at Hometree until thirty minutes before noon, when I started walking to the meeting place. Once I was out of sight of Hometree, I flew just under the canopy to the meeting place, arriving a few minutes before three helicopters arrived in a mall clearing. As it was landing, the other Atlantians walked through the treeline into the clearing. Two Avatars exited one of the helicopters, while a total of about ten soldiers exited the other two choppers. They formed a half circle around us, guns pointed at the ground, but ready to fire at a moments notice.

I felt the others tense up behind me, but I waved at them to stand down. The Avatars approached, obviously unsure of what to think of us.

"I am Grace, and this is Norm, " One of the Avatars said in english, "We would like to ask you for your help in our efforts to negotiate with the Omaticaya since they trust you, but are still wary of us. "

"I am John. These beside me are Gabe, Ben, Abigail, Catherine, May, and Paul. What are you negotiating for?" I asked in english. I looked to my right and left and saw the others with bows at the ready, but no arrows knocked. I knew that they could knock, draw, aim, and shoot in just under a second.

"We are trying to get the Omaticaya to relocate their home to another place. "

"Why can't they remain where they are?"

"The leader at our camp wants to begin a mining operation there, and sent us to find a peaceful compromise. "

"I can tell you right now that you will fail. Nothing will convince them to move from their home. You can negotiate all you want, but they won't move with any bribe you can think of. " _Knock an arrow_, I thought, knowing ARC would send it to the others. They did so, causing the soldiers to look to each other uncertainly. I had my bow in my hand, and I knocked an arrow as well.

"We don't want any trouble, " Said Norm, holding his hands away from his body, showing he had no weapons.

"How do you know that the Omaticaya won't move?" Asked Grace, seemingly unfazed by the bows.

"They have told me themselves. When we first arrived, they let us live with them. We did not negotiate, we told them what we needed, and they were able to help us. "

"How long ago has it been since you arrived here?"

"About 8 years. "

"What did you need?"

"To survive. "

After talking a bit longer, they came to the conclusion that we weren't going to help them much. As they were going to leave I asked them to take me to the man who sent them. They agreed, but could only take three of us, so me, Paul, and May boarded the helicopter with the Avatars and went to the human base. The helicopter we were on landed inside the wall while the other two went to the main hangar. The Avatars went to a gazebo type building and laid down on cota inside.

A few minutes later Norm and Grace came out of the building, not in Avatar bodies. They waved us over and we followed them. They led us to the control room I had been in last night, where Miles and Parker were looking at the holoprojector, which showed a geological survey of Hometree, showing a large concentration of ore directly underneath it. As we approached, they quickly changed it to a map of the area.

"Parker, these are three of those other people Jale saw at Hometree. "

"The ones that came from somewhere else?" Parker asked.

"Yes, those ones. "

Miles was standing at the holoprojector still, but Parker approached me. "What are your names? You have names, right?"

"I am John, this is Paul and May. "

"Oh good, some names that are pronounceable. Why did you want to see me?"

I was instantly annoyed by his attitude, but I didn't show it and instead continued to keep a straight face. "I am here to inform you that you will fail and that you should just save yourself some money and go back to earth right now. "

"Oh really? Well then, I guess we better go packing up everything just because some dude living in the woods told us to go home. "

I didn't respond.

"Now, what I want to know, is how you got the Omaticaya to accept you. Then, once we know that, we can use it and prove you wrong. "

"We are not equal to the Omaticaya. They helped us when we needed them, and we will help them when they need us. "

"Okay then, we need them to move, so you go tell them that, and maybe we can help them find a new tree to live in. "

My hand started to drift to my knife handle. "They will not leave their home. They helped us because all we needed was knowledge of the world. "

"So you won't help us?" Miles said, finally speaking up.

"I will not help you when you are doomed to fail. "

"Well then I don't see why you're still here. Johnson will take you back to where he picked you up. If you change your mind, you know where we are. "

"Save yourself some trouble and lives, and go back to earth now. " I said as I left for the main hangar with Paul and May and we boarded the helicopter that had taken us here. The pilot flew us back to the meeting place and dropped us off. The others had already returned to Hometree. We left the clearing and flew back to Hometree once we were out of sight of the helicopter. Before we had left the base, I had attached several tracking devices to various vehicles. Once I got back, I filled in the others on what had happened.


	19. Sabotage- chp18

_This chapter is here to avoid skipping several months to get to the attack on Hometree, and I'll probably skip their anyway next chapter, but I think it also helps make my whole story less boring. _

A few days after I had visited the human camp, some of the vehicles I had attached trackers too began to move. The vehicles I had attached trackers to were a few of the armour suits and helicopters. The ones that began to move were the suits. Satellite feed from _Hope_ showed they were travelling as escort for several of the large mining vehicles. The escort was land units, mainly soldiers with some suits for support. They were travelling very slowly, only going about 25 miles a day. They had to clear all of the trees and repair the vehicles almost daily. After a few days of travel, it became apparent that the destination was Hometree.

I contacted the others and had them meet at our camp.

"Satellite feed shows about a dozen large mining machines headed towards Hometree. Their escort consists of about thirty suits and at least two hundred soldiers. Our goal is to harass these troops all the way to their destination. We will attempt to destroy or render inoperable at least six of their mining machines. We will strike at random times at random locations along their perimeter. Sometimes it will be a diversion, sometimes a two or three pronged attack. Several of them will be diversions for someone to sneak in and destroy a vehicle. The main challenge here will be to not reveal our powers. The first attack will be once they have reached a position thirty minutes away from base by helicopter travel, which will be in two days. In the meantime, brush up on your archery, " I told them. They nodded and we all headed out to practice.

The two days approached quickly, and we were planning to attack at dusk. The first attack would be the easiest, since they would have no reason to suspect an attack. Because of this, we would attack on the rear of the convoy while Gabe snuck in the front and sabotaged one of the vehicles.

"Decoys are in position, infiltrator are you ready?" I asked over comms.

"Ready. I'll get in when I have an opening. " Gabe responded.

"Good. Beginning attack now. " I signaled to the others and we silently aimed and fired in unison. Our first shots we had coated with bioluminescent chemicals, which would announce our attack to the humans and draw their forces to where we were. The first volley we had decided would land just outside of their camp, where somebody would soon notice them. Once they had people looking for us with flashlights, we moved into the open.

We fired a few more shots off with our bows and then switched to knifes when they charged us. None of the suits were on, which was most likely caused by their lack of power; having trekked through the jungle all day.

"I'm in. just a few minutes and I'll have one down, " came Gabe's voice over the radio.

I didn't respond, and instead picked up a pistol from a dead human and turned it on his comrades. Once it clicked empty, I heard one of the suits turn on. It rose sluggishly, which meant it was low on power, but it could still shoot. I told the others to scatter and charged at the suit. It managed to get up on its feet and reached for its rifle on its back, but the pilot must've been new and couldn't reach it properly, ripping the ammo chain as it pulled it off. It still had about ten shots in it though, and I ducked to the left as it began to fire. I counted seven shots as I ran to the side, dodging dirt as it exploded behind me and rained down. I ducked behind a supply truck as the gun ran out of ammo. I heard him drop the gun and draw a knife. I ran out and jumped at the suit, landing on the windshield. I broke it open with my knife hilt and yanked out the controller. I hopped in the suit and took the controls.

"All done, let's get out, " Gabe said over the comms. We disappeared almost immediately, I was the last after I set the suit to self destruct in a few minutes. We rendezvoused at camp, each taking a different route to get there. We had destroyed one of the machines and a few of their suits, and scared the soldiers quite a bit. All in all, it was a success. All we had to do was do it several times more.


	20. Casualty- chp19

We'd been having skirmishes with the humans for a few months. They had been forced to slow their pace drastically and stop earlier in the day to set up security precautions. Despite this, we had still taken the machines from twelve to three. The escort kept getting reinforcements every day by helicopters, but we still kept attacking every few nights. After months of fighting, they arrived at a and demolished a sacred tree near Hometree. This was noticed by the Omaticaya, especially Netiri, who was there when it was destroyed. Most of us were at our camp at the time, except for Paul, who was at Hometree. Then the humans attacked.

It was in the afternoon, and they attacked with eighteen helicopters and their larger transport ship. The Omaticaya were waiting, but they were severely outgunned, even with Paul there.

"Code red, gunships at Hometree!" Paul called over the radio. We were too far away to get over quickly, but headed over as fast as we could. When we got there, It was too late. The base of Hometree was on fire, and the whole thing would come down any moment.

"First priority is to save the Omaticaya! Ignore the ships for now, save as many as you can!" I shouted to the others. "Paul, where are you?"

"On the ground, getting people out. "

"Hometree's coming down! Everybody out of the way!" May said.

"Paul, get off the ground and into the air!"

"Just a minute!"

Suddenly I was Paul, just like when _Resilience_ was stuck in the planet. He was running on the ground away from the base of Hometree, but it was falling fast towards him. He thrust out his palm and a wedge of ice extended, pushing about thirty Omaticaya out of the path of the falling tree. In the last few seconds before Hometree hit the ground, he threw something to the side and died as Hometree fell on him.

And I was back, sprawled on the ground, while the Omaticaya ran from the burning destruction that was their home. I was devastated and enraged. My sight turned red, and I launched myself at the helicopters, which were just starting to turn around. I targeted one of the helicopters on the left edge of the formation. I rocketed in through the side and shoved out the door gunner after taking his sidearm. I then turned around and shot the pilot, who was just starting to realise I was there. I pulled his dead body out of the pilots seat and sat down. It was a simple machine to operate, and I turned it to the left and strafed the others with machine guns, taking out two. I was halfway done with a second strafe when somebody hit the left engine. I was losing altitude, but I jumped out onto the larger shuttle craft, grabbing the door gun on the way out.

There were soldiers on top in a small fortification, and I let loose on them with the larger gun. They ducked behind sandbags, but I kept firing. I wasn't thinking clearly, and my rage was only getting worse. One of them threw a grenade, which I sent back at them. Immediately after it exploded, I leapt over the remaining troops and shot them. I dropped the large gun and ran to the cockpit. I looked in and saw Miles looking at me. Before I could shoot him, a maintenance hatch on the other side of the ship opened and troops started to come through. I ran over as the second was starting to get out of the helicopter. I shot the first at point blank range under his rib cage. The bullet severed his spinal column and continued on it's journey to embed itself in the second soldier's head, killing them both instantly. I grabbed a grenade from the first soldier and tossed it into the hatch.

Once it exploded I jumped down. There were six more soldiers in there, stunned from the blast. The grenade had happened to be a flash bang. Before they could recover, I turned the water in their bodies into plasma, killing them instantly and burning holes in the bottom of the ship. I heard a clunk behind me and turned to see a grenade lying on the ground, pin pulled. I quickly shielded myself, but the blast caused me to stagger backwards and out through one of the holes in the floor.

I landed in a river, finally shocked out of my mindless rage, but only for a little bit. I raised myself up and hovered above the river, lobbing globules of plasma at the retreating ships. A short while later, I began to launch them farther, towards their base. The globules I was throwing ranged from the size of peas to car tires. I had no idea if they would hit the base or fall short, but I didn't care. All I cared about was our lost comrade, and nothing the humans did could bring him back.

A few hours later, I had come out of the mindless rage for the second time, and was laying on my back in the river, mindlessly looking at the stars. I felt nothing. No grief, hatred, or desire for revenge anymore. I was just too tired to care. The others had shown up earlier, and stayed nearby, although out of sight. I knew they would still be there, waiting for when I would walk up to them, have some great plan, and then do it. Except I had no plan. I was too exhausted to do anything. I was numb to the world. I raised my hand and made an icy flame, making it flicker like fire, and then let it fall back into the river. It had been one of Paul's favorite tricks.

Now there were only six of us, plus those still on _Resilience_, resting in what could very well be their tomb. The Omaticaya would head north, to another place where they could connect with Eywa. We had never been allowed there before, and I didn't know if we would be now. Finally, I got up and found the others.

"Hey guys, " I said. They looked at me glumly. It was clear they were all grieving for Pual as well. I sat down and pulled up a map of the human's base on my watch. I highlighted a route from the main gates to the holding cells, and then from there to varios exits. "Our next move is going to be to hit the humans at their home. We will take the Avatar operators who tried to help the Omaticaya, Jake, Grace, and Norm. They may have betrayed the Omaticaya, but they also betrayed the humans. They kept up the appearance that they would move, but in the end they didn't, forcing them to use force, which will undoubtedly meet bad public approval back on earth. Once they are out, we will take them to their mobile link site or whatever.

Satellite shows it's only five minutes away by flight. Once there, we'll take them and the mobile site north to the Omaticaya; the Avatars can catch up later. We'll all enter the camp as one, but once we get to the holding cells, we'll split up. In three groups of two, or three once we pick them up, we'll exit at different parts of the camp. Don't be afraid to use powers. We want them to be as afraid as possible. "

Once you're out, get to the mobile site for rendezvous. We will attack tomorrow at noon. Choose your exit routes and teams. Use anything you need from camp. Bring at least an extra pistol for the Avatar users. Good luck. "


	21. Infiltration- chp20

We were ready the next morning to attack. I was paired with Gabe, and we all entered the compound at the same time. We had planned to come in with full force, but I remembered that Miles had told us to come back if we changed our minds, so we were going to use that to get in, then blow stuff up and get out with the Avatar users.

We arrived at the gate before noon. There were holes in everything, evidence that I had already done some damage to the base. Guards were spread all across the wall while construction crews attempted to repair the damage. The gate had several holes in it, so we just walked through. I walked to the command center, having memorized the route yesterday. A troop of passing guards stopped us once we were outside the main building.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To see Colonel Miles. He told us to speak to him if we wanted to help him. We're here to change sides and get off the losing team. " I replied.

"Right this way then. "

He led us into the complex and towards the command center. Once we reached a point along our route that was closest to the detention cells, I signalled the others. Several things then happened at once. Simultaneously, all of our ARCs hacked into the security system and tripped all of the breakers after emitting a short power surge from the generators, killing all lights and cameras. They also turned off the backup generators and triggered fire alarms, which set off the sprinklers, giving us plenty of water to work with. I took out a light pistol and shot the guard that had been with us. It was mostly dark inside, but the holes in the ceilings and the windows let in enough light for us to see fine without needing to use our second sight.

We ran along hallways, taking several detours to slow down soldiers who might be following us, and made it to the detention cells without running into any guards. Once there, I found it empty.

"ARC, what's wrong? We're in the right place but they're not here. "

"Shortly before we set off the fire alarms, security footage shows them escaping with the help of a helicopter pilot. They are headed to the main hangar. I'm sending their estimated location to your watches. "

"Good. " I looked at my watch, where a red dot had appeared on a map of the base. "Let's go! Everyone, stick together. " We ran back through the hallways, and caught up with them in the hangar. They were boarding a helicopter, all of them soaking wet from the sprinklers. We were under a catwalk when I heard a door open above us. It was Colonel Miles, aiming a rifle at the helicopter. He missed with the entire magazine, and then drew his sidearm. He managed to get a single shot off with his pistol before I shot it out of his hands with my pistol. He looked down in surprise before I threw water on him and froze it. The helicopter left the hangar, and we followed it.

I flew up alongside it and hopped into the cabin area. There were the three Avatar operators, looking at me in surprise. "I am here to help, " I said in english. They still just looked at me. Then I realised the one called Grace was bleeding badly. A gunshot wound. "I'll be right back, " I said. I jumped out and flew to our camp. I grabbed some medipads and then returned to the helicopter. They were all still there, but Grace was definitely doing worse than before. First I dried them all, taking the water off of their bodies and threw most of it out the door. I used some more to wash away the blood on Grace, then got rid of the water. I used the medipad on her wound, and then stepped away once it was applied. Medipads could only do so much, and I hoped she would make it. I walked up to the cockpit to see the pilot.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

She turned in surprise. "Who are you? How did you get on my ship?"

I guess she had missed us when we boarded. "I'm John Smith, " I said.

"How did you get on my ship?"

"We flew. "

"We?"

"Look to your left. That right there is Catherine. " Catherine was flying next to the helicopter, as were the others, who were flying around it at 2, 4, 6, and 8 o'clock positions.

"You can all do that?"

"Yep. Where are you going?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot to answer your question. I'm taking them to the mobile link site, about a 15 minute flight from here. Oh, I'm Trudy, by the way. "

"Nice to meet you. I'll see you at the link site. " I left the cockpit and went to the cabin and checked in on Grace again. She wasn't doing much worse, but she wasn't better either. I jumped out of the cabin and sped to the link site, followed by the other Atlatians. After we got there, we waited for the helicopter to arrive. Once it got there, the Avatar operators got inside before attaching it to the helicopter and flying north to find the Omaticaya. Once we were airborne, I changed out the medipad on Grace. She was looking a little bit better, but was obviously in pain. We had painkillers at camp, but I had no idea how they would react to humans since they were designed to target pain receptors in the brain and turn them off. In theory, It should work, but in practice, I had no idea, so I decided not to take that chance.

When the helicopter was about halfway to the Omaticaya, I flew ahead to locate a suitable landing site. The helicopter landed fifteen minutes later. I brought over a few weapons over from camp as well as some rations. I left the others with them while I went to find the Omaticaya. They were gathered at one of their sacred trees, like the one that had been destroyed. I landed where nobody could see me and tried to find Ole'eyktan, but I couldn't. I found Tsu'tey and asked him where he was.

"Ole'eyktan died at Hometree. " He responded.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know. We lost one of ours as well. Paul died at Hometree as well. "

"I know. His final act saved my life. You are welcome to stay with us as equals. If you ever need me, I'll be glad to help. "

"Thank you Tsu'tey. I have medical supplies at our camp, we can bring them over to help with the wounded. "

"No thank you. The plants here are very good at healing, and those who would not have made it either way have left us. "

"I'm sorry for your losses. " After a few more minutes of talking, I left the site to get the others. We spent the first night near the mobile link site, and then moved in with the Omaticaya the next day.


	22. Ending the war- chp21

_So, I think this is the longest chapter I've written, and I think it's also the best one so far. This chapter has the big battle in the floaty mountain area. I change who dies just a little bit, as well as who kills who, but for the most part it follows the movie timeline. _

The day after we helped them move the mobile link site, Jake flew into the Omaticaya camp on Toruck Macto. He managed to get help from them to try and heal Grace, but despite our efforts, she died. At the moment, messengers were roaming the air and countrysides to find other clans that would help us drive the humans away. While they were out doing that, I was on _Hope_ repairing our only remaining fighter.

It was a very small fighter, but was all we had left. It was hard to work on it since the hangars had not been pressurised and we had to wear space suits to work on it. The fighter was a light _Striker_ class ship, and had 4 wings that extended up, down, right and left. On each wing was an energy cannon. The body of the fighter was mostly cylindrical, and was where the pilot sat. The wings were able to rotate around the body, allowing for increased maneuverability. They were also able to rotate to help aim or dodge projectiles being fired at it. It was a rather fast ship, but had weak shields and armour. The cockpit had been smashed, so it could only do in atmosphere flights.

We had fixed it so it could fly and shoot, but the shields were still unoperational. I was to be the pilot in our next fight with the humans. "Try that, " I said after tightening the bolt for the seventh time. It rumbled and coughed some smoke, then turned off. "Something with the third chamber is broken. I think I know what it is. How's the shield coming along?"

"Shield is almost finished, just a minute. Got it!" Ben said. The shields flickered on, a light blue sphere that extended out to the tips of the wings, ending just before the cannons.

"Good job. " I took off a cover plate on the third engine chamber and removed a few pieces of shrapnel. Once they were out of the way, I found a leak in an oil line that I managed to fix with some tape. "Try that. It should work now. " The ship sputtered for a few seconds, then roared to life, lights blinking. I leaned in the cockpit to check all the settings. "Fuel is low, shields good, guns good, all good. I saw some fuel barrels earlier. I'll find them. " I walked over to a corner of the hangar and began moving things out of the way to find the fuel barrels. After i found one, I grabbed it and brought it over. It was weightless at the moment, since we hadn't yet restored the artificial gravity on the ship. The fuel the ship used used a similar concept to the burn fuel, except it didn't give off as much energy.

I refilled the fuel tank and folded up the wings for transport. We were going to strap it to the underside of the maintenance shuttle and bring it down, which worked out a lot better than I expected. We brought it down on one of the Hallelujah mountains, where the Humans would have to pass through to get to the Omaticaya camp just on the other side. At the landing site, gabe and Abigail were waiting, where they undid the straps and lowered it to the ground on its own landing gear. Once it was detached, I sent Ben to the main camp with the maintenance shuttle to pick up the plasma cannons.

When both of them were brought over, we positioned them on the sides of two mountains, so that they were invisible until they had passed them. May and Catherine would be manning the plasma cannons, I would be in the fighter, and the rest would be on the ground.

The next day, other Na'vi started pouring into camp. It was impossible to tell exactly how many, but it was definitely a lot though. The humans started moving in after about a week since Jake arrived. Once I saw they were moving in, I got the others together and we brought some clouds in. This would help mess up their thermal images from satellites, but not by much. I also instructed ARC to use plasma cannons on _Hope_ to shoot down any satellites he saw. After we got good cloud coverage, We took up our positions. I was in the fighter, disguised behind some foliage we placed there earlier. It was perched on the edge, ready to dive off at a moment's notice. I had made my own canopy of ice, which was mainly just to keep the wind out of my eyes.

"Enemy sighted. Units appear to be a very large bomber, a troop carrier, and about a hundred helicopters. It's their whole military, " ARC said.

"Start counting down to when we need to attack on all frequencies, " I said.

"Yes sir. Four minutes. Three minutes. Two minutes. " I saw the lead helicopters coming around the mountain. "One minute. " More kept coming, it looked like ARC was right about their numbers. "Thirty seconds. FIfteen seconds. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Go. " I started the fighter, and it dove down the mountain. The wings unfolded and I sped up to slightly less than full speed. I turned to my left and came face to face with the entirety of the humans army. I set shields and weapons to full power and began to fire. Jake had said he would take care of the two larger craft, so I concentrated on their escort. As soon as I was in range to fire on them, my wings started rotating to maximise the hits and dodge enemy projectiles.

I took out the lead helicopter and started weaving all around the ships. The first four were easy to kill, but after that they began to fight back. I was on the tail of one when the door gunner of another began to fire at me from a helicopter above me, forcing me to pull away. I strafed the bomber once as I passed it, then redirected my focus to the helicopters. The troop carrier was lowering, most likely unloading troops. A few minutes later, it rose and joined the fight again.

"Gabe, Ben, Abigail, land troops have unloaded, be careful down there, " I said over our comms.

I turned left and took out another helicopter and kept fighting. After a little bit, we had lost a lot of our air forces. The ground forces were being pushed back, despite our best efforts. My ship had lost most of its shields. The bomber had been taken out, but any one of the helicopters could just as easily destroy their camp. The rogue helicopter was in a dogfight with the troop transport, and didn't seem to be doing too well. I turned towards it, firing on the way, knowing I was too far away to bring it down.

But maybe I didn't need to. A helicopter started tailing me, firing as my shield began to drop. A second one was on my left as well. I got a little closer to the shuttle, then sped up and rolled left. The helicopter behind me tried to keep me in his sights, but I had ducked behind the helicopter that had used to be on my left, which was now being hit by his own side. Mid-roll, I fired before I had a chance to miss. The bullet from the left wing traveled from my cannon to the missile housing on the transport, blowing up all half of their missiles and killing their forward gunner. Their chain guns however, where still firing.

I flew under the ship and fired as I pulled up in front of them, taking them out.

"Thanks John, I owe ya one, " The pilot said over the comms.

"You're welcome, " I replied as I shot down another helicopter. We were still losing, and it wasn't looking good for us, but I refused to give in.

"There's too many down here! We're falling back!" said one of the Avatar operators over the comms.

I looked at my damage report. Shields at 24%. Overall integrity 62%. Ammunition low. Fuel for fifteen more minutes. Gun 1, 3, and 4 operational, but gun 2 was at 20% efficiency. The plasma cannons had been destroyed, leaving May and Catherine to commandeer helicopters.

"This isn't looking good. There's still too many. About sixty helicopters left. May, get close to our rogue pilot. Get her out before she's shot down. Catherine, with me. " I banked sharply to avoid a missile launched from behind me and took out the person who fired it. Catherine flew in beside me and we began to take out as many helicopters as we could.

"May, how are you doing?"

"I got her out, but we're being swarmed. I've got to get out of here before it's too late. "

"Bail out and get to the mobile link site with Trudy. "

"Got it. "

"Catherine, how are you holding up?"

"Not the best, these helicopters aren't as maneuverable as I'm used to. "

"They came! Eywa has listened!" somebody said over the comms.

I looked up and saw about a hundred more of the flying creatures swoop out of the clouds, immediately engaging the helicopters.

"This is ground force, we're pushing forward again, thanks to the local wildlife. "

Shortly after, the transport lost an engine and began to fall. "Catherine, stick with the fighter. I gotta do something first. "

"Don't let anger cloud your judgement John, " Catherine said.

I plugged ARC into the ship and took it out of my ear. I got rid of my canopy and then jumped out. I made bands around my arms and legs and flew down to the shuttle crash. I landed and surveyed the damage. The shuttle was destroyed, but there was a fresh trail leading off into the woods. I followed it. I caught up to the suit ten minutes later, where it had just sighted the mobile link site. May and Trudy were most likely inside, and didn't see it coming. I raised the pistol and shot the ammo chain on the suit. One of the rounds exploded, severing the chain about fifteen bullets from the gun. He turned and fired, but the ammo soon ran as I dodged out of the way.

"You killed Paul! " I yelled.

"And now I'm gonna kill you, " Miles said back.

"Unless I do it first. "

"Really? I don't see any water around here, and you only have a pistol. "

"Who said I needed water?" I charged, holstering my gun. The fighter flew overhead and three objects detached from the bottom. Hoverdomes. I jumped on the first as it landed and caught the two other smaller ones. I hooked them onto my hands with some straps I'd put on earlier. I could steer the hoverdome I was standing on by leaning, and could easily adjust the height of it. Same with the two smaller ones, although I would be using them to shove the suit around.

As soon as I had them on, I shot at max force at the suit with the hoverdome on my right hand. It staggered backwards and I glided around it, staying facing towards it. He drew a knife and swung at me, which I easily dodged. I went in close and busted the cockpit easily with the left one and got out of range as I waited for the hoverdomes to recharge. Miles just put on a mask and continued the fight. It was a while before I attacked next, I just kept dancing around his attacks. When I was ready, I went under his arm after he swung at me and used both hoverdomes at the same time on opposite sides of the suit's left leg. It was buckled in beyond use and could only sit there. He wasn't knocked over though and could still pivot the upper half. It was another five minutes before I attacked for the third and final time, and I raced forward, suddenly raising the larger hoverdome so it faced him and the hitting the larger one with the two on my hands. This shoved Miles back twenty feet to rest against a tree. He climbed out of the suit and drew his pistol.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am John Smith, Captain of _Hope_, survivor of Mundar invasion, Major in the Atlantian army, and avenger of Paul, " I replied.

"Why are you with them?"

"I already told you that. " I raised my hand towards him and froze the firing pin in his gun. "_You are avenged and am free to leave this world, Paul, _" I whispered as I turned the water in Miles' body to plasma, leaving behind only a puddle of muddy water. Atlantians believed that until they had been avenged, their soul is stuck at their death place, most of the time doomed to stay forever. I lowered my hand and flew up to find that very few enemy helicopters were left airborne.

I quickly eliminated them by lobbing chunks of ice at them. The enemy air force was obliterated, and their ground troops were in a full retreat. I got back in the fighter and put ARC back in my ear. By flying low over the hoverdomes i had used to fight Miles, they attached themselves to the underside of the fighter. I rose up from under the canopy and flew towards the human base, meeting no resistance on the way.

"ARC, who did we lose?"

"We lost Tsu'tey, Hund'ri, and almost a thousand Omaticaya. Plasma cannons are destroyed. It was a costly battle, but I think we ended the war. What's our next step, sir?"

"Get the humans out of here. "

"And after that?"

"Rescue _Resilience_. "


	23. On the way- chp22

_In this chapter I send the Atlantians off to rescue Resilience, as well as Trudy. Next chapter I'll probably throw in something weird in the ground. _

I landed the fighter at our camp to refill the fuel, and then flew using bands to Hometree. I landed there and walked over to the fallen tree. All the fires had burned themselves out, and grass was just starting to creep in around the edges. I went towards the base of the tree to where Paul lay. I took out my knife and cut in an X with a line down the middle. I took a step back and hit something with my foot. I looked down and saw an ARC. Paul must've thrown it to the side before he was killed. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, maybe I could do something with it later.

I stayed there a few hours, and then returned to the Omaticaya camp. Some of the other tribes were already starting to leave, but there was still a sizable force left. Jake seemed to have been accepted as their leader, and was doing a good job at it. In just three days, he had gotten the humans to leave Pandora back towards earth. Once they had left, I started repairing _Hope_ with the others. We got the normal engines to work, but the burn chambers were still having some trouble.

I was fixing some of the armour plating when we got a response from a rather old signal. "Sir, remember when we sent out a signal for _Willpower_?" ARC said.

"Yes. Did they answer?"

"No. They are all dead. "

"Oh. "

Five months later, _Hope_ had been repaired. It could burn now, and the entire inside was pressurized, except for the main cargo hold. All we needed now was fuel. It was easy to find, since the fuel was combined from simple elements, and both were plentiful on Pandora. Once we found all we needed, we were able to leave. Before we did though, I needed to talk to Jake and Trudy.

"Jake, the other Atlantians and I have to leave the planet now. We will return as soon as we can, but we may be gone for more than five years, if we run into problems, " I said.

"Where are you going too?" He asked.

"Other Atlantians have sent us a distress signal requesting a rescue, and we have to help them before it's too late. It should take us about a month if all goes as planned, but we still know very little about the planet they are in. "

"In?"

"Yes. It's hard to explain. "

"Okay. Thanks for letting me know. "

I left and found Trudy, who was trying to fix up her helicopter, which had been badly damaged in the fight but was coming along nicely.

"Trudy, we are leaving the planet for a while and would like to ask you to come along with us. You're a great pilot and we could use someone with your skills on our ship. "

She set down her wrench and turned to me. "Where are you going to?"

"Others of us have run into a problem, and we have to rescue them. "

"How long will I be gone?"

"If everything goes well, only a month or so. If we run into a bunch of problems, five years or more. "

"Great, I'm in. "

"All right. When would you like to leave?"

"Whenever you're ready. "

"In two days then?"

"Sure. "

"All right. I'll find you when we're ready. "

Over the next two days, we brought up all of our equipment from base camp, as well as a few helicopters left by the humans, including Trudy's, which we fixed completely. When we were ready, we brought her up in the maintenance shuttle. In the hangar we had the fighter, the maintenance shuttle, and five helicopters, which we had modified to be able to fly in space and also have increased speed in atmosphere. Along the back of the wall we had lots of fuel and mining equipment, along with barrels upon barrels of water. We kept the food, spacesuits, medipads, and weapons closer to the bridge.

"You had this the whole time? I know some people on earth who would kill to see this. ", Trudy said when she stepped onto the ship.

"It's been badly damaged for a long time, and we've been repairing it for five months. ", I replied. "Come on, let's get to the bridge. "

_Hope_ was meant to have twelve pilots, but we had made several modifications to bring it down to seven. I showed Trudy how to work the console she would be at. After she was comfortable with the setup, we began to start the burn sequence for the second time.

"A lot of this stuff is decades, even centuries ahead of earth. How long have you guys had to make all of this? "

"Let's leave it at a long time. " I didn't want to explain the time machine disaster to her. We had more important things to think about right now.

"Okay. Works for me. "

"Alright. Let's get ready to go. Everybody to your spots please. " Everyone went to their consoles, and I checked everything one last time. "Cloaking shield off, guns in, Atomic Dissapator online, everything looks good. Begin burn sequence, " I said.

"Burn sequence engaged. Ready to burn in two minutes, " Ben said.

"Whenever you're ready, burn, " I replied. Two minutes later the ship rocketed into light speed. Over the next four days, we waited for us to arrive at the planet. It was an uneventful trip, which was a welcome change from battles on Pandora.

When we arrived, we got our first glimpse of the planet. It was about twice the size of Pandora, and was a solid planet, but the atmosphere was thick with gases. It was unbreathable, and too thick to see very far. The temperature was a little lower than was comfortable, but we could deal with it. We orbited the planet to locate where _Resilience_ would be easiest to access, and got suited up to descend to the planet.

Upon landing, we lost contact with _Hope_ due to the heavy fog. There was little water in the air, which meant we would have to bring our own. The second day we got a camp set up around the location where we would be mining so we wouldn't have to wear the suits all the time. We created plasma and used it to melt the ground away, which let us get up to a hundred feet on most days. When we were about an eighth of the way to _Resilience_, we encountered a large cavern.


	24. Alive and well- chp23

When we first breached the cavern, the pressure difference was very noticeable. I was using some plasma to melt the way down when it was breached. As soon as I had made a small hole, it sucked in the plasma I had been using and almost me as well. I managed to make a temporary barrier with ice, but I would need more water to make a better barrier.

"Ben! Send me some water! Quickly!" I yelled.

"On it!" He replied. A few moments later, he was sending down water. I managed to make a plug that would hold as long as I maintained it. I headed up to the main area, making sure to keep the plug in place.

"Everyone, into the airlock. Get your suits on. I breached a cavern, and the pressure difference is big. I don't know if the air down there is breathable or not yet, but I don't want to take any chances. " They all obeyed, and I put on my suit as well, but I stayed out of the airlock. "When I open it back up, wait until everything settles down before exiting the airlock. I'm not sure if we'll be able to repressurize here again. Try to keep everything from flying around if you can. " I walked back down to the plug and made bands to keep myself from being sucked away. The other Atlantians had used our water supply to freeze the living area in ice to keep everything from flying around.

"I'm about to open it. Be ready, " I said over the comms. I stopped maintaining the plug and cracks began to appear immediately after. A few seconds later, it broke and flew into the cavern. It was hard to keep myself from flying away, but I managed it and remained in our mine. "Done. Come on down. "

I could see no bottom or walls to the cavern. There was more water in there than on the surface, but the air was still unbreathable. The others arrived besides me and looked into the cavern as well.

"It goes down for a long time. I can't see a bottom, even with water sense, " May said.

I left the others and grabbed a laser measurer from upstairs. The laser had a range of 5000 feet, and it couldn't sense a bottom. I held it there for a while, hoping something would show up. Nothing did. I pointed it to the sides and got no readings in all directions. I returned it and got a glow stick, which I cracked and dropped into the hole. It fell out of sight, and we never heard it hit the bottom.

"ARC, any suggestions?" I asked

"None, sir, " ARC replied. "I find no records of anything similar to this in any files I have access to. "

"Great. ARC is stumped. Everybody, upstairs. We need a plan. "

A few hours later, we had a plan, but not a very good one. Half of us would go in while half of us would stay. Once we hit the bottom, If there was one, we would radio to the surface, who would radio back. Our ARCs would then use some kind of formula to detect lag and decide how far apart we were. Then, from there, we would have to figure out what to do next. I would be going down, along with Trudy, Gabe, and Catherine. We all grabbed a light rifle and pistol, flares, grenades, combat knives, and spare power packs. We didn't know what to expect, and the last thing we wanted to be was unprepared.

"Ready guys?" I asked before we entered. They all nodded, and we descended. Trudy couldn't go down like we could, so I had to fly her down. ARC said it took us only four hours to reach the bottom, but It felt like days. We traveled with our headlights off, but brought a large lantern with us that spread light for a long ways around us. We say nothing on our way down until we reached the floor. When we got there, we contacted the others. "May, Abigail,and Ben. This is John, Gabe, Catherine, and Trudy. We have reached the bottom. Sending the timed signal now, "I said. A few seconds passed.

"Good work. We have received the timed signal. ARC says you are 100,000 feet down. That's a long way. Should we come down now?" They responded.

"Yes, come on down. Bring camp supplies as well please, and mark the entrance with a radio beacon. We don't want to get lost down here. "

"Affirmative. " A pause. "On our way now. "

The others traveled a lot faster than we had, and free fell most of the way. Once they arrived, we set up camp and a second radio beacon. We recharged our suit batteries and then set out to explore. We could find no end to the cavern, which seemed to extend in all directions forever. After a few hours of exploring the nothing, we found something.

"Guys, I found something. It's a village, " Ben said.

"Stay put Ben, do not approach or engage. Stay out of sight of any inhabitants there. We're coming to your location, " I replied. I was the second one there, and what Ben had found was indeed a small village. He had turned off his headlamps so they wouldn't see him, and I did the same as I approached. Once the others arrived, they saw the village too. It was surrounded by something that made yellow light, but it wasn't fire or electric lights.

"ARC, what's down there?" I asked.

"The village has about twenty buildings, each capable of housing about five individuals, assuming the individuals are human. I can't see much from here, but based on the door height, the creatures who live or used to live here are about the same height as you. The technology seems to be rather primitive, and the light seems to come from some kind of fungi, but all of this is only guesses. "

"Any sign of recent activity there?"

"I cannot tell from this distance. "

"Allright, I'll go down with Gabe, the rest of you, stay here. Charge the light rifles for sniper shots and be ready for anything. " I said. They nodded and I began to approach the village. We had been on a ledge about a half mile away from the village, and now we approached it. Me and Gabe had turned our headlights back on as we approached. We stopped outside the line of fungi.

"ARC, analyze, " I said.

"It's definitely humans. The building on the left, third down, has a piece of technology from before the time machine disaster. They've been here for a long time. "

"Have they been here lately?"

"Yes. They are here now. "

Somebody leaned out from behind a building. "Who are you?" He asked.

"We are John and Gabe. Who might you be?"

"What are you doing here?"

I sighed. Maybe once we answered his questions he would answer ours. "Some of our friends are stuck in this planet. They arrived here several years ago. Do you know where they might be?"

"Did they come in a ship?"

"Yes. "

"We will help you if you get us out of here. " More people came out of the buildings. "We've been stuck here for centuries, living in the dark. "

"How many people do you have?"

"About a hundred. Can you take us all?"

"Yes, but it will take time. "

"Good. You can rest here, later I will take you to your friends. "

"There are five more of us here as well. Can they stay here as well?"

"For now. "

"Thank you, " I said to him. "Come on down guys, and discharge your weapons. They'll help us, " I said to the others over comms. "You never told me your name, " I said to the man.

"Fredrick. "

"Frederick what?"

"I don't know. "

The others arrived at the village. The villagers cleared out a building for us, and we thanked them for their hospitality. Once we had rested and recharged our batteries again, we were ready to set off. Frederick was waiting for us.

"This way. Follow me, " he said. We walked for several hours, and then we arrived at a portion of the cavern that was different from the rest. The floor here was rougher, and in one section I saw a small piece of metal that was stuck to the ground. Frederick stopped. "Here is where your friends will be. "

"Thank you. Will you be heading back to the village?" I asked.

"No, I do not want you to get lost down here. "

I nodded my thanks and got to work. ARC located where the main cargo hold should be, and I began to melt my way through. The rock here was harder to melt away, and it took an hour to get to the metal sheeting on the ship. Once I saw it, I hesitated.

"ARC, I'm worried about the air in the cavern. Will they die when we open it up?"

"The suspended animation modules are airtight and will withstand the pressure difference. "

"When we breached at our camp, It almost sucked me out. Will it break some of the chambers and kill some?"

"I don't think so, but I am unsure. The best thing to do is a pinpoint breach. "

"Allright, I'll try that. " I made a small globule of plasma and got down to the metal, then I made it just a drop. I pressed it very quickly against the metal several times. Once I knew I would breach it the next time, I made it as small as I could. Then I touched it very lightly to the metal and drew it back. The breach was about the size of a pin, and air began to hiss out of the ship.

It stopped fifteen minutes later, and then I widened the hole so I could jump in. Inside were seventy-five suspended animation chambers. I widened the hole more to be able to fit the chambers through. I found the captain and turned off his chamber first, making sure not to open the chamber. He woke up and looked at me through the glass. His ARC still had the visor attached, and it flashed to life.

"This is John Smith to _Resilience_ captain, can you hear me?" I asked over my ARC's radio.

"I can hear you. Thank you for coming. How long have we been here?"

"Almost a decade. Ready to get out?"

"Yes. "

"Alright. It will take a while to get everybody out. The air here is toxic to us, and we can only do a few chambers at a time. We'll get you a suit later, the rest of the crew will listen to you for sure. "

"How many of you are there?"

"Me and five others. "

"What happened to the rest?"

"Crash landing on a planet. That's where we'll be taking you guys. "

"Okay. Thanks for rescuing us. "

"Alright. We'll get you to the surface, give you a suit, and then start unloading others. It'll take a lot of fuel, but we can manage it. " I levitated his capsule through the hole and set it down. I got two other capsules out as well and we got them all the way to _Hope_. Once there, we let them out and began to get ready for a return trip. It would take a month or so to get everyone from _Resilience_ and the village, but then we would be able to get back to Pandora with a better chance at survival.


	25. Mundars- chp24

_This chapter is pretty good I guess. You can read it if you want to, or you can just skip it and be confused next chapter. Your choice. _

We managed to get all of _Resilience_ onto _Hope_, and salvaged as many parts we could. We were almost done with the village evacuation when we were found. I was taking a group of five humans up to _Hope_, when five Mundar scout ships entered our system.

"Sir, five Mundar ships approaching. _Stinger_ class. They haven't seen us yet. "

"Cloak _Hope_ now, they can't be too far from a carrier, where is it?"

"These ships have been modified for long range travel. I don't think they have a carrier with them. They are only scout ships. "

"Get the _Resilience_ crew to man _Hope_. They know how to operate her. Open comms to _Hope_ and the other helicopters. "

"Yes sir, but two helicopters are on the planet. Our comms can't penetrate the atmosphere. "

"We'll work with what we have. Scan for cloaked ships as soon as they get in range. Trudy, May, prepare for combat. Charge the blasters and heat up the missiles." I switched to the speakers that were all over _Hope_. "_Resilience_ crew, get to combat stations immediately. Villagers, please get to the hangar. Prepare for attack. "

"This is _Hope_, Cloaking shield is on, shields are holding at 84%, plasma cannons are ready in energy mode. I see five _Stinger_ class ships. Scanning for cloaked ships now, " Said the captain of _Resilience_.

"_Hope_, we don't have much support right now. Only three ships. Two more may arrive later, but you're the main source of firepower and our ticket out of here. Try not to get hit. " To Trudy and May I said, "Form up, hold position about a quarter mile from _Hope_, prepare for combat once the cloak scanning comes back. " We waited while the ships approached. The normal _Stinger_ class ships had rather limited sensors and shouldn't be able to see us for a bit longer.

"Cloak readings just got back. No cloaked ships in the system. Just give the word and we'll uncloak and fire. "

"Negative. We should be able to take them. Fighters, on me. " I flew straight at the oncoming fighters. They were taken by surprise and veered out of the way. "Fire at will. " I turned left and took out one of the scouts. Trudy took out two right away. May was on the tail of another. I looked around but couldn't find the fifth. "Where'd the fifth one go?" A few moments later May finished off the fourth, but the fifth was still nowhere to be seen.

"This is _Hope_, we've been scanned. Sensing more ships entering the system. We are uncloaking now. " if _Hope_ had been scanned, then they knew where it was. No point in hiding if they saw us.

"That's fine, scan for cloaked ships again, one of the scout ships disappeared. "

"Scanning now. Results coming soon. "

"_Hope_, set plasma cannons to quarter power and spray energy bolts all around. If shots disappear, concentrate fire in that area. "

"Brilliant idea. Going now. " The space around _Hope_ turned green as they fired into space. After the initial wave died down, a small portion remained green for a moment longer. "We got it. Scan results coming in now. Uh oh. Two large carriers are just outside the system, unloading Stinger, Swarm, and assorted bombers. They are forming up right now. We can't take them all. "

"ARC, how many people are left in the planet?"

"About fifty. "

"New priority, get the villagers out of the planet. _Hope_, prepare for burn. "

"Yes sir, " replied _Hope_. The other two helicopters exited the planet, ech loaded with five other villagers to unload on _Hope_.

"Gabe, Ben, unload quickly. Then get back down to the planet to pick up as many villagers as you can. we've got company. "

"Got it. Only forty villagers left, " Gabe replied.

I dived towards the surface, losing contact with _Hope_ along the way. I landed at the camp and traveled to the village as fast as I could. We had cleared out all of our equipment after we found the village, leaving only a radio beacon at the camp and the village. I got there and grabbed all of them on a large sheet of ice, as well as the radio beacon. I took them as fast as I could to the camp and got the inside. I deactivated both the radio beacons and loaded them into the helicopter. We filled up two of them with ten people, and then once Gabe and Ben arrived they took the other twenty. It was a tight fit, but they managed it. Trudy's helicopter was filled up with the radio beacons.

We took off and ascended as fast as we could. When we broke through the atmosphere, _Hope_ was firing at a large swarm of ships that were advancing towards it. They had not yet reached firing range. We sped up as fast as we could towards the hangar.

"Hope, clear landing pads two through six in the hangar. Prepare to burn on my command, " I said on the speakers. We were approaching fast. The Mundar ships approaching broke into squadrons. We landed in the hangar at about the same time. "Burn now! Go!" I told _Hope_. The ship disappeared into space, leaving the Mundars behind.

I exited the helicopter and went to the bridge, gathering the others on the way. When I got there, I saw the _Resilience_ crew at the consoles, doing their best to adapt to the controls we had changed. "Thank you for commanding the ship. We never could've managed that without you. What did you say your name was again?"

"Your welcome. I actually haven't told you my name, sorry about that. I'm Sam. Sam Gudroy. "

"Thank you for helping us Sam. "

"Well, we're all in the same boat. Or ship. "

"Good to hear that. Where did you set the course to?"

"I didn't want them to follow us directly to where you wanted to go, so I just shot off in the direction we were facing. Hopefully that's not towards the planet we were headed too. "

I checked the map on the holoprojector. "It's fine. You and your crew go get some rest. It'll be awhile before we arrive. "

"Okay. Thanks again for rescuing us. "

"No problem. " He left with his crew. Once they left, I sat down at the control console. I was glad they were able to operate the ship, but I didn't have to like them using it. The others sat down and we began calculating when to stop the burn and change course. Several hours later, we exited the burn and rotated to get on track for Pandora.

We arrived on Pandora a week after our run in with the Mundars. When we arrived, we spent two days unloading everybody. Not much had changed on Pandora. The human camp was still there, and was being used to generate an Avatar body for the scientist Norm; his Avatar had been killed in the last battle. I had ARC give the _Resilience_ bridge crew the file for the language. The humans we rescued as well as the remaining crew from _Resilience_ would stay at the human camp until they had become used to the planet. They had to wear the masks, which were rather limited. We were considering making Avatar bodies for all of them, but we didn't have enough resources for that.

Everything was going nicely, but I doubted it would last. I had just brought back the same people we had fought to be rid of. I knew the _Resilience_ crew would follow their captain, but I didn't know if their captain would follow me. All I could do was hope for the best.


	26. Survivors- chp25

_This chapter is meant to get John off Pandora for a bit so I can advance stuff there a bit without having to go into too much detail. _

It had been a few days since everyone was unloaded from _Hope_, and already the Omaticaya didn't like that I brought humans back. Jake let them stay at the human camp, but he destroyed most of the defensive fortifications. All of the weapons were being held by the Omaticaya as well. Several other tribes were against them being here as well. The other day a small scout party fired some arrows at the compound. Nobody was harmed, but scared the humans. The crew of _Resilience_ was doing okay. The bridge crew was being taught about botany and the wildlife, while the rest were still learning the language. I had made them leave all of their weapons and advanced technology on _Hope_. I still let the bridge crew keep their ARCs, but without the visor.

I was modifying another helicopter for space flight when an unencrypted Mundar transmission was intercepted by _Hope_.

"Sir, _Hope_ has intercepted a Mundar transmission. It's unencrypted, " ARC said.

"Well, let's hear it then, " I responded. I wiped my hands off with a rag and waited. It was just an audio recording, sent from Atlantis.

"This is Simon. Me and a small group of survivors have captured this comm station. _Resilience_, _Hope_, _Willpower_, anybody out there, we need an evac. When you arrive, contact us on comm frequency 7-7-5, channel 6-3-6. " There was an explosion in the background, and some yelling. "We gotta go, please help us!" The transmission ended. I sat there for a while.

"ARC, how old is this transmission?"

"It was sent using a Mundar comm station, which has instant speed. The message was live. "

I thought for a moment. I needed an evac for a small group of rebels. _Hope_ would be shot down as soon as we stopped the burn; she was too big. We needed something for ship-to-ship and ship-to-ground combat also capable of evac. I looked around. The answer was right in front of me. I set down the rag and continued to fix up the helicopter.

I had gotten all of the engineers and mechanics from _Resilience_ to help fix the helicopters. Once they were ready for space travel, we needed to get them ready to burn. That was hard, but we eventually figured it out. It didn't make its own fuel, which was fine. All it needed to do was get us there and back. We filled it up with enough for a round trip, and then added some more so we could take a roundabout way to throw off the Mundars.

Finally, we were ready. I would take a helicopter squadron to Atlantis, find the survivors, and get them back to Pandora. I hopped into the pilot's seat of the first helicopter. The other helicopters sat unoccupied. ARC would be piloting most of them. Trudy would be in one other helicopter. I would provide air support while the Trudy got the survivors loaded and then we would get off Atlantis. We would both have four other ships to command. ARC would take care of them. We just had to tell them what to do.

We left Pandora a week after the message arrived, spent four days burning, and then emerged in orbit of Atlantis.

I opened to comm frequency 7-7-5-6-3-6. There was no such thing as channels on Atlantis comms, and the frequency was always 6 digits long. It was a good idea by the survivors. Help throw off the Mundars if they got the message. "This is evac squad hailing survivors, do you copy?" a few seconds passed.

"We copy. Thank goodness you're here. "

"Well, you're not safe yet. Send you coordinates. "

"Coordinates are 34X, 17Y, -4Z. "

"-4Z? You're underground?"

"Yes. we'll be waiting at 0Z when you arrive. "

"Allright. On our way. ETA fifteen minutes. "

"See you then. "

It was surprisingly quiet. No Mundar ships in orbit. We stayed above the planet until we got to the coordinates. Only once we got there did we encounter any resistance. Four squadrons of _Stinger_ class ships uncloaked in front of us and opened fire. I lost two of my fighters right away.

"Trudy, dive! Get to the surface!" I yelled to her. "Sending down evac transports now, get to the surface!" I told the survivors. Trudy and her four ships dived to the surface. A squadron followed her. "ARC fighters, take out that squadron, " I said ,referring to the one pursueing Trudy. They dove as well, firing on the ships. I was left alone with three squadrons of _Stinger_ ships, which wasn't the best odds. But I took what I got. I fried an electronet, a net with electromagnets along the sides. It was very large and would strangle several ships. Then I would activate the electromagnets and it would stick to the ships or itself, causing them to crash or be neutralized.

When the net was launched, the Mundars didn't even see it. It wrapped around the first three before I activated the electromagnets. It took another in as well, making four ships stuck. They were jerked towards each other and crashed into a fifth. They all exploded, which made the odds slightly more manageable. I had installed a small shield generator into my ship, but it was very limited and wouldn't give me much time if one of them got behind me.

"Trudy, almost done down there?" I asked. It was a full out dogfight up here, and I wasn't doing too good.

"Landing now, " she replied.

"ARC fighters, did you take out that squadron?"

"Yes sir. They are returning now, " Replied ARC.

"Good. " I pulled up as two ships collided with each other where I had just been. Rolling backwards I fired and took out another ship. It was only two squadrons now, but my shields were at 4% and I was running low on ammunition. Thankfully, these pilots seemed to be rookies and didn't have much coordination. If they were seasoned veterans, I would be in a million pieces right now. My ARC fighters returned and took out four more _Stingers_. The rest put up a good fight, but they ultimately lost. My shield was out, chain guns empty, and out of most missiles. I only had two air-air missiles left. Trudy arrived with her four helicopters. I had only one left fit to burn. I turned to face the other that had lost all of its burn fuel. I fired a missile at it and blew it up. I couldn't leave anything for the Mundars. If they could travel at light speed, nothing would be safe.

"Trudy, how many survivors did you pick up?"

"Seventeen. Most of them were injured, " She replied.

"Okay. Let's get out of here. The sooner we're on Pandora, the sooner we can fix them up. "

"Allright. Burning in 3, 2, 1, now. "

We rocketed into light speed, taking a different route than the way we came. We landed on Pandora in the human camp and spent the rest of the day healing the survivors. When I went to sleep that night, I thought everything was turning out nicely. I didn;t know how wrong I was.


	27. Uprising- chp26

_I'm not sure what to do next chapter, but I've got a few ideas. See ya then I guess. _

I woke up the next morning and went into the control room to see what was going on. Ben was sitting at a console, facing away from me.

"Mornin', " I said as I passed him.

He spun around. "John! What're you doing here! We've been looking for you for the past week!"

"Oh, I was at Atlantis. Saved some survivors. "

"Well, now you get to save the peace here. " He got up and went to the holoprojector. He zoomed in on the arms depot the Omaticaya had made to keep the weapons away from the humans. "The day you went missing, _Resilience_ crew and humans raided the arms depot. They took as much as they could carry and destroyed the rest. Not too hard to do when you're destroying incendiaries. Anyways, for the past week, they've been doing hit and run raids on the Omaticaya. They've commandeered _Hope_ and all of our air vehicles. The six you brought back are all we have left. "

I looked at the map, now displaying the places where the Omaticaya had been attacked. "Why are they doing this?"

"They say that this is the 'new Atlantis' and that they must clear out all who oppose its creation. "

"Sounds like a terrorist group. "

"I know. They've locked up the others as well. May, Catherin, Abigail, and Gabe. They even found Paul's ARC and destroyed it. "

"Destroyed it!"

"Yep. Smashed it with a hammer and then chucked it into space. "

I sighed. I had been hoping for a few days of quiet. "Why aren't you locked up?"

"They told me to give you a message. They said 'this is our planet now, and you can leave', except not that nicely. "

"So this is what we get for saving them from eternal sleep. Show me what we got to work with. "

"Six helicopters, nineteen Atlantians, and one helicopter pilot. All up against about 75 Atlantians and a hundred humans. "

"Not great odds. What weapons do we have?"

"We've got the helicopters. That's about it. And our bows and knives. "

"Did they raid our camp?"

"Yes. It's all burned down. "

"Darnit. I had some cloaking suits there. "

"I know. "

"We'll work with what we've got. Get the others in here please. "

"Got it. "

I sat down in a chair next to him as he spoke over the PA system. I was gonna be in trouble with the Omaticaya, I knew that. They might banish me or something, but I needed to fix what I'd done wrong, even if they rejected me. The first step would be to take out the troops on Pandora. _Hope_ was a big ship, but the landing gear had been broken when we first left Atlantis. It wouldn't be landing here any time soon. If we took out their air troops, then we could stop reinforcements to and from _Hope_ and starve them out. Only problem was, that's where my other crew members were being held. If we did that, they might kill them. We would have to get them out first so they couldn't control us.

The others began to pour into the cafeteria outside of the control room. I waited until they had all sat down and then went out to talk to them. "Sorry for getting you up so early, but we have a problem. It seems that the week I was gone, we've had an uprising. Seventy-five Atlantians and a hundred humans have acquired weapons and or ships, _Hope_. They have captured four other crew members and they are being detained on board _Hope_. They've been attacking the natives and causing panic to the population. We need to stop them before it's too late. Our first step will be to take _Hope_ and free the other four. After that, we need to locate their ground base and take that out. Third and final step will be to eliminate any remaining troops that weren't at either of the locations when we attacked. We don't need someone to run off with explosives and blow a hole in _Hope_. Who was the leader on Atlantis?" I knew that to survive a decade on a hostile planet was no easy feat. they would have to have somebody to teach them how to survive.

One person stood up. "I'm Sergeant Brand. I will help you with your mission, as well as the others. "

"Thank you for your help. How far along have your powers developed?"

"Quite a bit. We have made Programs and Proxies before. "

"Good. That should be enough.

"Glad to hear it. What do you want us to do?"

"Divide into three teams. You, Ben and I will each command a team. We'll board _Hope_ at the main hangar and split up from there. One will take the bridge, the detention cells, and the armory. Priority is to regain control of _Hope_ and free the others. "

"We can do that. When do you want us ready?"

"Tonight. We'll take off at midnight. "

"We can do that. "

"Thanks again for helping. "

"No problem. Just returning the favor. "

At midnight, we were all in a helicopter, waiting for takeoff. We were taking three, one with each team. In my team was Trudy and five of the survivors. I was in charge of the bridge. We took off and approached _Hope_ in radio silence. We kept all lights off so they couldn't see us and used only pneumatic stabilizers to approach. When we got too close for the guns to do anything, we landed in the hangar quickly. The doors opened as soon as we entered the pressurized area. There were four guards, which were taken care of immediately. ARC had put the cameras into a loop before we landed, so nobody could tell we were here. We split up into our teams. I would stick with Brand's team for a short while before his team split from ours.

"Good luck, " I said to him as he turned to the detention cells.

"You too, " He replied.

I continued through the hallways. We met no one, which was unnerving. They must have most of their troops on the planet. I was most of the way to the bridge when a door behind me opened. I spun around, ready to impale whoever emerged with an icicle. Nobody stepped out, and the door closed. Suddenly, I realised what had happened. They were in a cloaked suit. I sent out a shockwave of frost, clearly outlining four figures. Two in front, and two behind.

"Ben, Brand, they have cloak suits, be careful, " I said over the comms. I froze one in ice while I drew my knife and sliced the wrist of another as he lunged. Trudy had shot one of the others, and the remaining two went down easily.

"We were just about to get attacked by some. Thanks for the early warning, " Brand said over the comms.

"Ben, are you there?"

"Yeah. Almost lost one to the cloak suits. All good now. Almost to the armory. "

"Good. " I continued to the bridge, using water sense to keep an eye out for cloaked people. I was just outside the bridge door about to open it, when a squad of guards came from down the hall towards us. They were Atlantians. They had rifles and opened fire. I blocked the hallway with a sheet of ice and sent it towards them. They paused their firing and turned it back into a puddle of water. I couldn't do much against them with water. We got up against the wall, hiding in any crevice we could find. I drew my bow and fired once around the corner. Somebody yelled in pain, and the fire lessened slightly. I closed my eyes and did something I hadn't done in a long time. I made a Program.

It formed behind the shooters and attacked them. They were taken by surprise and weren't prepared for melee attackers. They were knocked out very quickly. I turned it back into water and we stormed the bridge. There were seven people sitting at the consoles, as well as ten guards. The guards were human, but the people at the console were Atlantians. I froze the humans and the others attacked the Atlantians. They started fighting each other with swords and shields, hitting a lot of the fragile technology. I joined in with my knife, killing them one after another. Once they were all dead, I had the others lock the bridge.

"Brand, Ben, we've got the bridge. How about you?"

"Detention cells are all ours. Your friends are free. "

"Armory is being stubborn. Got four Atlantians locked inside. We would storm it but I don't want them blowing up the ship. "

"I'll take care of them in the armory. Brand, I'm sending my troops to you. Clear the ship and lock everyone up. " I sent the Atlantians to Brand, but had Trudy stay. I needed somebody to keep an eye on the hall. I accessed the circulation system and shut off air to the armory. In thirty minutes, their air would run out and they would pass out. Then I would open the doors and we would have the armory.

Once the other reached Brand, the ship was quickly cleared. The rebels were locked in the detention cells and Ben was able to take the armory without resistance. There were only thirty people on Hope, and we managed to fit them all into the largest detention cell. I put them into suspended animation from the bridge and we got ready to descend back to the planet.


	28. Split up- chp27

We had taken complete hold of _Hope_ when a single ship approached. It was the fighter, and it seemed like they found a spare windshield. It was completely repaired and was working great. I saw it approach, but the plasma cannons were offline at the moment rebooting. I checked the cameras. I was on the bridge, and the others were at the armory or the detention cells. I grabbed the microphone for the PA.

"We have a ship approaching. Intent unclear. Get to the hangar and prepare for combat. Ship is a single person fighter. Be careful, " I said. I put it down and ran to the hangar, Trudy right behind me. We were on the way to the hanar when something exploded. It came from the hangar. I wasn't sure what it was, but I was about to find out. I burst into the hangar, Ben's group just entering from the other side. In the hangar was the fighter. It had already fired on four of the helicopters, and was aiming for the other two.

"ARC fighters, engage the enemy!" I hadn't taken ARC out of the helicopters yet, so he should be able to take over. They powered on, one of them flickering shields. The fighter fired and destroyed one, but the shields on the other held. It rose and fired on the fighter. It turned and left the hangar.

"ARC fighter, stand down. " The ship landed, but kept the shields on and guns ready. I surveyed the damage. The one we had wouldn't fit us all at once, so we would have to take two trips to get everybody down. The fighter reentered the atmosphere on Pandora and disappeared from our sight. The other helicopters were badly damaged. We couldn't fix them for space flight again.

"ARC, how are the landing gear on _Hope_?"

"Repair is impossible without supplies we have on Pandora. "

I turned to the others. "We've got one helicopter now. I don't want to risk two trips down, they might shoot you guys down. If we lose the helicopter, your sitting ducks. We'll have to split up. We can fit ten, maybe eleven people in the helicopter. The rest will have to stay up here and defend _Hope_. "I would like volunteers for the two teams. If you want to stay, on the left. If you want to head down, on the right please. "

They split up. Ten on the right, nine on the left, five in the middle. The five were the five remaining _Hope_ crew members. "You're our captain, John. Where do you want us?"

"Stay with _Hope_, please. She'll need you if you get attacked. "

"We'll die before they get _Hope_. " They joined the group on the left. I joined the right group. In it was Sergeant Brand, Trudy, and several of his survivors.

"All right, lets go. I had a tracker put on that fighter a while ago. ARC, where is it going?"

My watch lit up with a map of Pandora. A red dot blinked where the fighter was. It was headed towards where Hometree used to be. Since it was destroyed, the Omaticaya had moved to the soul tree up north. At least, I'm pretty sure it was called soul tree. "They've landed here before, and it lines up with where they are headed. " A yellow dot appeared quarter mile away from Hometree. I nodded.

I closed the map and looked at the others. "Anybody know how to fly?" Trudy's hand went up. "You want to fly?"

"Sure. " She was a better pilot than me, especially with the helicopters. We boarded and descended. We landed at the Omaticaya camp. As soon as we landed, a large group of guards was right beside us. I think they were more to keep us from attacking them. "Where's Jake?" I asked in Na'vi. The survivors looked at me quizzically.

"This way, " One of the guards said. We followed him to the center of the camp. Jake was there with Neteri, talking to an injured scout.

"Jake, sorry I wasn't here when the uprising started. I was off planet. "

He turned to me. "Why didn't you tell me you were leaving? We've lost a lot of Omaticaya, and the nearby clans are getting ready to come in for a full out war. " He stepped closer, obviously angry at me. "You brought them here, so you get them out. I won't let you use any of my people until you succeed or die. I lost all my best troops in a war you could've won on your own, and that's what you're gonna do this time. I don't have the resources to help you, and I don't want to see you until you finish this war. "

He had the right to be angry, but I never meant for any of this to happen. "Understood. We'll be leaving now. " We left the camp and returned to the human base. Once we got there, I pulled up the map with the attack locations from the upstarts. "ARC, run some numbers please. I need to find a pattern in these attacks. Do whatever you have to, I need to know where the next attack will be. "

"Yes sir. I'll have them ready in thirty minutes. "

I walked the rest of the compound, making sure everybody got settled in well. We would stay here until we had to move out to stop an attack. Once ARC had the numbers done, I looked at the pattern. He had predicted the next four attacks, which seemed to me to be in random places. "What am I looking at ARC?"

"This is the randomized formula his ARC created. We are linked, so I have access to all of his data. The formula he used is very complex-almost to many variables for me to compute. "

"This is the next one, right?" I asked, pointing to the dot labeled '1'.

"Yes. It will occur tonight at 2115. "

"We'll be there. How many troops do you think will be there?"

"About thirty. Mostly humans, but about ten will be Atlantians. "

"That'll be annoying. Humans we can easily take care of. The Atlantians can cause a lot of trouble though. " I'd seen fifteen Atlantians taken out by a rogue soldier once. They had been taken by surprise, and it wasn't pretty to watch someone be torn apart from the water inside their veins.

"I know, but if you take them by surprise, it shouldn't be much of a problem. "

"Alright. We'll arrive at 2117 and fight them off. Take prisoners where we can and kill the ones that don't surrender. We'll need to figure out where all of their camps are. Let the others know. "

"Yes sir. "


	29. Retaliation- chp28

_Have fun reading and be careful of the coronavirus. :)_

The location where the upstarts would attack was along an Omaticaya trail to Hometree, where a few herbs were growing that were easiest to gather there. The trail was surrounded by trees on both sides. I could see a few places where the bark was lighter than other areas, which meant that the attackers had already been here to plan their attack. I used that knowledge to place ourselves away from their sight, but close enough to respond as soon as the attack began. We were in pairs, waiting for the attack. The plan was, half of us would charge while the other half provided cover fire. I was paired with Trudy and I would be the one to charge. She had a pistol with her, which she had kept from before we left to get the survivors off Atlantis.

The upstarts arrived a few minutes after we were set up, and they didn't see us. The Omaticaya passed through a few minutes later. It was a group of about twenty, all of them armed with bows and knives. I drew my knife, knowing the attack would be soon. Once the head of the group was just about to pass through the trap, they attacked.

"Go!" I yelled. We burst out of the foliage and charged the attackers. The Omaticaya, caught in the middle, were taken completely by surprise. They fired on both sides. I had told the others to be careful of this, and they easily deflected any arrows sent their way. I led the charge and we met with the humans on the other side of the trail. The Atlantians were in the trees, throwing ice projectiles at the Omaticaya and the others.

The humans were armed with pistols and spears, and were just starting to fire on us when we reached them. I slashed one in the chest, spun, and stabbed another. Two others came at me from either side. I froze the blood in their veins, killing them. The humans were killed quickly. While I was fighting them on the ground, the others on the other side of the trail kept firing on the Atlantians. Three of them had fallen out of the trees after being killed while I was busy on the ground.

Now the humans were dead, so I flew up behind one and slit his throat before he could notice I was there. He tried to stop his bleeding but it was too late. He fell out of the tree, grasping at air. The others followed my lead and we soon had the upstarts killed or captured. The Omaticaya had left as soon as they had the opportunity, but three of them lay dead on the trail. I did a quick head count of my allies and saw we had none dead, but several wounds that could easily be fatal. We had two prisoners, a human and an Atlantian. I approached the Atlantian.

"Where are your medical supplies kept?" I asked, drawing my knife.

He was definitely scared. He had probably been just a mechanic on _Resilience_. "Up north! I can send you the coordinates, but don't kill me, okay?"

"Okay. Send the coordinates, and I'll even let you go, " I responded, lowering my knife.

He pushed some buttons on his watch and a new point appeared on my holomap. "There. Um, I'll be off if you don't mind. "

"Good. I don't want to see you again, so you best disappear. " He ran off into the woods. I knew he wouldn't head north, he wouldn't want to run into us again when we raided their medical camp. I turned to the others. They had armed themselves from the fallen troops and had found some medipads. It was enough for now, but we would need more to defeat the uprisers. "Good work. Tomorrow we'll raid their medical supplies. For now, let's get back to base. We'll take the prisoner with us, " I said, referring to the human we still had with us.

When we got back to base, I locked up the human in the detention cells. We debriefed in the control room and then got ready to sleep. Then the upstarts launched their own counterattack.

An alarm went off in the control room. Everyone else was scattered around the base. I looked at the holomap and saw a squad of helicopters approaching, several of them had already launched missiles. The missiles had been launched early and would fall short of the wall, but the helicopters still had more. I turned on the PA. "Enemy fighter inbound! Defensive positions immediately, possible ground force as well. Trudy, you're our best pilot, you know what to do. " I ran out into the hangar, passing the helicopter. I ran out the hangar door and stood there for a few seconds and concentrated. I focused on the water all around me and started to form it together. It took a minute, which allowed the helicopters to get close enough for the missiles to hit the outside wall. Finally, I was finished.

I looked up and saw I had created five jets out of water and ice. They were already racing to meet the helicopters, and I could see one of them try to retreat. The jetsReached firing range easily and took out half of the helicopters easily. The jets could outmaneuver the helicopter easily, and the door gunners were having trouble leading them. Trudy flew out the hangar towards the remaining helicopters. They were quickly destroyed and I dispelled the jets back to the ponds and rivers they had come from. Trudy landed in the hangar and the others came into the control room as they left their defensive positions.

"How did you do that?" Sargent Brand asked when he entered.

"I just willed it to be, and it did. It doesn't maintain itself like a Program though, but I think I can figure out a way to fix that. "

"Okay. I'll have the others start working on that. We've used Programs before, but not very often. It's unnerving to tell yourself what to do. "

"I know, but I think It's how we'll win this war. For now, get some sleep. I'll see you all in the morning. " They all left for their bunks. I set up some alarms if the perimeter was breached and if more helicopters arrived, and went to bed.


	30. First raid- chp29

_Since covid-19 is causing a big stink all across the world, I guess I'll do something with it in the next chapter or so. Stay tuned I guess. _

We had all been armed from our counter attack, and the others had been given watches as well. In the morning I reviewed satellite footage of the location where the medical supplies would be. It was under an overhang from a cliff, so we couldn't bomb it, even if we wanted to. The mission was simple; get in, get supplies, get out. We would go in as one and split up to clear the whole camp. Once it was clear, we would bring in the helicopter to help shuttle the supplies out. I had rigged a simple basket underneath the helicopter to give it more storage. Trudy would be flying us in and waiting for the all clear.

We had just landed and had just exited the helicopter when everything exploded. The clearing we had landed at had been rigged with explosives. I was thrown backwards and landed hard on my left shoulder. When I opened my eyes, spots danced in front of me. I managed to stand up after a few minutes, but my ears were still ringing. I shook my head. The spots had cleared, but I couldn't hear anything. I looked up and saw that Trudy had gotten clear of the blast, and was hovering. I could tell she was yelling, but I couldn't hear anything.

"I'm fine, I can't hear, though, get back to base and wait there, " I said. At least, I think I said that. She must've understood because she left us there. I looked at the others. Brand was dead, as well as three others. That left five others. They were standing up, but they were in no state to fight right now. I motioned for them to follow and we entered the woods, away from the medical camp. We got up some trees and waited for our hearing to return. We waited a long time. Several hours later, I could hear the others talking to each other.

"Trudy to John, can you hear me?" I heard over the comms.

"Yes. Hearing is back. Are you at base?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm at base. Not much going on here. "

"Good. We'll attack soon, I think. We need those medical supplies. "

"I saw some people didn't get up after the explosion. Did anyone die?"

"Yes. Brand and three others died. "

Silence.

"We'll be attacking soon. We need that medical equipment more than ever now. "

"I'll be on standby for the all clear. "

"Thanks. " I turned to the others. "Alright, let's go. The camp is only thirty minutes away by foot. " We started walking. At the explosion site we stopped for fifteen minutes to bury the dead, then continued. We were armed each with a light rifle and pistol and assorted grenades, except for one person who had found a grenade launcher. We each had watches to stay in contact with each other. As we approached the base we fanned out to see the camp from different angles. We had planned to split into two groups when we attacked, but now we would have to stay as one group. Once we found a suitable entry point, we grouped together and prepared to attack.

I counted down to the others. 3. 2. 1. 0. We charged across the open space, firing at the guards at the perimeter. We used our pistols with silencers for this part, which kept the rest of the camp from knowing what happened. Atlantian silencers were truly silent, the only sound being the click of the gun. We got over the picket fence easily and surveyed the camp. There were three tents. A large tent had the hospital and the medical supplies. A medium tent would be where the troops slept, and the third larger tent would be the mess hall or something like that. I nodded to the troop with the grenade launcher. He understood and loaded an anti-personnel grenade. He aimed and fired it into the mess hall. It ripped a hole in the fabric and exploded with a loud bang. People staggered out of the door, other parts of the camp going on full alert. We charged out from our hiding place and attacked. I picked up an energy shield from a dead guard and used it to defend myself. The energy shield was similar to the human riot shield, but it allowed me to fire through it without being exposed. It was much lighter as well, and a good deal smaller when deactivated.

The others followed my lead, and formed a line with me. It was rather effective, as long as we took out the enemies before they could flank us. We slowly advanced into the camp, taking and giving damage. At the center we were forced to form a circle as we were flanked, but we were able to keep the enemy at bay. Finally, we had cleared out the whole camp.

"John to Trudy, we're all clear. Come on in, " I said over the comms. We searched the camp one last time and began to empty the hospital tent and take weapons from the dead guards. We had all of it in a pile when a helicopter arrived. It wasn't Trudy, who was still ten minutes away. It landed on the overhang of the camp. We prepared for a fight and picked up energy shields again. We heard voices, but couldn't make out what they were saying.

Ten Atlantians then jumped down from the ledge, heavily armed and riding hoverdomes like I once did against Colonel Miles. They charged, making spears as they approached. I threw my energy shield to the side; they were only good against projectiles; and threw a wall of ice at them. They simply went over it and continued their charge. "Scatter!" I told the others and charged the first Atlantian. He leveled his spear at me as I ran towards him. At the last moment, I slid under him and flipped his hoverdome. He fell off and was forced to dispel his spear or risk impaling himself. I commandeered his hoverdome and flew towards the others. They were chasing my troops and I came up behind one and drew my knife. I stabbed him in the back and he fell off his hoverdome, which came to a rest a few yards away.

I continued to attack the Atlantians, blasting them with ice and slashing away. It was difficult to maintain balance, but we eventually killed all of them. The helicopter on the overhang had left when they first descended, leaving us alone. Trudy arrived just after I dispatched the last attacker. She landed in the camp and jumped out.

"What happened!" She asked.

"We took the camp and they launched a counter attack. We didn't lose anybody but we better get some medipads on them before it gets infected or anything. " Once everyone had medipads on their wounds, we loaded the remaining weapons and medical equipment into the helicopter and flew back to base. We unloaded the supplies when we arrived and then settled in for the rest of the day. We had enough medipads to keep us going for a long time, and the weapons we would need to fight off the upstarts, but the one thing we severely lacked was troops. Only seven left. At this rate, we would need to get everyone off _Hope_ by the end of the week to keep them at bay.

I knew we had yet to deal a fatal blow to the uprisers. So far we had been a nuisance, but the medical camp was a big blow. Without their main supply of medical equipment, they would have to fight a lot more conservatively. Any injury could mean death if it got infected, which could easily happen on Pandora.


	31. Covid-19- chp30

_You can read these words if you like. It may temporarily relieve boredom while you are quarantined. If you're reading this after the corona epidemic, good job on surviving. If you weren't alive during the corona epidemic, I don't know why you're reading this. You probably have robots to read for you and stuff like that. Anyways, enjoy. _

We woke up the next morning with our wounds mostly healed. Trudy and the five others were eating in the mess hall when somebody knocked on the front gates. I checked the cameras and it was an Atlantian from _Resilience_. I stood up. "You two, with me, everyone else, stay on guard, " I said. The two followed me to the gate. I had them stand just inside the wall, behind a corner so they wouldn't be seen.

I opened the gate. The Atlantian outside was a lower ranking soldier, just a messenger. He had rations and medipads with him. His holster was empty, and the gun was lying on the ground a few yards away. He held his hands away from his body to show he was unarmed. He was visibly tired and breathing hard.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Everyone we have- is sick with- some virus. We don't know- how to cure it- but the supplies you- took yesterday helped- them fight off the- virus. We need your help- to stop the spread, " He said, gasping for breath.

"How many are sick, and is it humans and Atlantians?"

"Everyone is sick. Almost all are sick, except for twenty or so. " He had stopped gasping, but was still very tired.

"Are you sick?"

"Yes. They sent me to get your help and to show the symptoms. "

"How many have died?"

"So far, four. But everyone is sick, and we don't know if it will get worse. "

"ARC, analyze. What is it?"

ARC processed the symptoms for a bit, as well as vitals from the Atlantian in front of me. "Analysis suggests it is a virus called Covid-19. Mortality rate is higher among older humans and Atlantians. "

"Will they be fine without our help?"

_This is where I make stuff up again. Any similarity to government, commercial, or private projects or research is purely coincidental. _

"No. The Covid-19 virus itself isn't much worse than a bad cold, but, in about three or four weeks, it will mutate into Covid-20. The antibodies produced to fight Covid-19 will be useless and even counterproductive against Covid-19. This is when the deaths will rise. Mortality rate of Covid-20 is 84%, barely lower than the black plague. "

"Alright, We'll help you. Any traps or ambushes and I'll have _Hope_ will blast your camp off the planet from orbit, " I told him. _Hope_'s orbital strike cannons had been broken when we first left Atlantis, but the _Resilience_ crew didn't know that.

"I understand. When do you want to leave for my camp?"

"We'll leave in about an hour. You can come in while we get ready. "

"Thank you. "

I walked back through the gates, signalling to the other two to stand down. They lowered their rifles and followed me into the complex, keeping an eye on the messenger. I led them to the command room where the others were waiting.

"Alright guys, the uprisers have a virus in their camp. Trudy, take three and get about a quarter of the medical supplies on the helicopter. You three, with me. I'll go talk to the leader in their camp. Don't fly in until you get an all clear from me. " Trudy nodded and began to get the helicopter loaded. I would take the messenger back to their camp and talk to their captain. I needed them to stop fighting us if they wanted our help. I grabbed a small pack of medical supplies and began to trek to their camp.


	32. Peace?- chp31

_..._

When we arrived at their camp, people were lying everywhere. They were alive, but in bad shape. Some were looking for medicinal herbs in the forest, but they had revolted before learning much about local foliage. I grabbed a fern-like plant from one person and tossed it into the forest before they could use it for tea. "That ones no good. Use the ones with a red stripe on the bottom of the leaves. " He thanked me and went back into the forest to find another plant. I walked to the command tent. The messenger led us there, and kept the guards from attacking us. He went in first for a few moments, then exited and held the flap open for us. We walked inside.

Inside was what remained of the bridge crew of _Resilience_. Two of them had been lost when they ended up inside a planet, and the virus had claimed three more. They were all sick and lying on their beds. The captain sat up.

"John, we need your help, " He said.

"You don't need me, you need medical supplies, " I replied.

"True. "

"Why didn't you move the supplies here?"

"We were going to, but then you arrived. The helicopter that landed was supposed to take the first load of supplies here. "

"We can help you. "

"Can and will are two very different things. "

"For now, we'll leave it at can. "

He nodded. "Of course, you'll want us to stop fighting you. "

"Yes. "

He sighed. "You can take all the weapons and helicopters. I'll send you the coordinates in a few minutes. "

"We don't need all that. What we need is you to stop fighting. "

"Very well. I will tell them all after you bring in the first load of supplies. You can take the weapons and helicopters anyway, I don't trust some of the troops not to go rogue with all that firepower lying around. " He sent me the coordinates for two air bases and an arms depot.

"Good. It's a deal. " I passed him the small pack of medical supplies. "We'll have the first load in by 1530. "

"Thank you, John. "

I nodded and turned to leave. I opened the tent flap and sent Trudy the all clear to bring in a load of medical supplies. We left the messenger there and I returned towards our base with the two others. We met Trudy on her way over and followed her back to the camp to make sure she wasn't shot down.

We landed at the camp and caused quite a stir. The captain of _Resilience_ was waiting for us. When we landed, he turned to the crowd that had gathered. "Due to the virus that is rampaging through our camp, I have bargained with the enemy for medical supplies. We will no longer battle against them, and instead work alongside them. They will hold our weapons and aircraft until they are needed. "

This caused a murmur to run through the crowd. I could tell they were confused, but willing to accept this change. We distributed the medical supplies, and then took a stop at the arms depot to empty it out. Once that was done, we started ferrying helicopters up to _Hope_, and got the others off. We kept five helicopters on the ground, two at our base, two at the uprisers camp, and one hidden.

Three months later, the virus had been defeated. It ran its course and claimed fifteen lives, but we managed to destroy it before it mutated. We had everyone living at the humans' old base, and we were all getting along well. The Omaticaya still didn't like the others, but we were working on removing the distrust and hatred. Everyone had been taught Na'vi, and ARC was working on finding a nearby planet for us to move to so we didn't disrupt the Omaticaya.

The humans that we fought off had begun to arrive at earth, and it was causing a lot of political battles. ARC had very limited information on what was happening there, but from what he gathered, it would be a while before they left earth. Atlantian technology began to advance again, albeit very slowly. We even found a way to help Jake, Norm, and Max speed up the process of their new Avatar bodies. The future began to look bright, and we hoped it really was.

_This is NOT the end, but I haven't decided what to do next. There will definitely be more chapters, but what happens is yet to be decided. _


	33. Second Chance- chp32

_Just a quick chapter before they land. _

ARC found a suitable planet for us to move to after a year and a half. The Avatar bodies would be completed in a few months, and then we would leave. I had told Jake we would be leaving, and he seemed a little disappointed to see us go. We had moved everything to _Hope_ in preparation for our move, and had helicopters waiting on the ground. It would take us only a few days to get everyone on _Hope_, and then a month or two to get to the planet. It had been peaceful since the virus was fought off, and the Omaticaya had begun to accept them.

The week before we left, I met with Jake. I had brought a large single channel transmitter.

Jake was waiting for me. When he saw me bringing the transmitter, he asked, "What's that?"

I set it down to the side. "It's a single channel transmitter, capable of light speed transmission. I want you to keep it here. If you ever need us, you just press this button. It'll send a message to _Hope_, which ARC will forward to us. " I turned it so he could see the buttons on the transmitter. Only two were there. One to transmit a default SOS signal, and one to transmit an audio signal. There was a speaker and microphone as well, most of the machine being the transmitter itself.

He nodded. "Thank you, John. I hope all goes well with your journey. " He stuck out his hand.

I shook it. "Would you like us to leave anything behind?"

He thought for a moment. "Can you rig some explosives on the human's camp? That way we can blow it if they decide to come back. "

"Sure thing. I'll get you the detonator tomorrow. " We said our goodbyes, and then I left to organize the transports to _Hope_.

The next day, I delivered the detonator to Jake just before I left on the last helicopter. Once I got on _Hope_, I headed to the bridge. May, Gabe, Ben, Catherine, Abigail, and Trudy were already there. "Prep for burn. Pull in plasma cannons, close hangars, and tell everyone we're about to burn. " The consoles lit up and began to flash. I heard Ben over the PA system notifying the passengers of what was about to happen.

"Burn ready. Atomic diverter online, " Abigail said.

"Course set. Double checking trajectory. " May said. There was a slight pause. "All good. Ready when you are. "

"Activating burn in three, two, one, now. " I said. The ship lept into light speed as we sped towards the planet.

The ship would more or less fly itself for the duration of the trip. ARC had said the new planet had no name, and we decided to call it Second Chance, after the program that had first allowed us to survive. The atmosphere was good for Atlantians and humans, the gravity was slightly larger than Pandora, and natural resources were plentiful. Wild animals and plants grew across the surface. All in all, it was a new Atlantis.


	34. New Places, New People- chp33

_I do realise that I named the planet Second Chance instead of Last Chance, and I did that on purpose because, who knows? Maybe they'll need a third chance. And if you aren't already, have fun during your quarantine. _

When the burn ended, we orbited the planet once to get a good first look at it. We had managed to fix the landing gear on _Hope_ by taking apart most of the human's camp. We found an ideal landing position easily. A thin forest in the west, a real dense one in the east, mountains off in the south, and plains in the north. We would set up our buildings in the north while taking supplies from the forests, and any stone or ores we needed from the south.

As we descended into the plains, the plasma cannons were primed and ready, with the shields on. The first group of people out would be a squad of armed Atlantians and humans. We had salvaged all eight plasma turrets from the old shuttles that had lain abandoned since we first left _Hope_ for Pandora. The plasma turrets guarded the door while the first squad exited the ship. I watched from the bridge.

They met no resistance. "Seems all clear. Setting perimeter beacons, " The squad captain said. Two points appeared on my watch, and shortly after two more did as well. Four of the plasma cannons marched out the door and took up positions at these markers.

"Squads two through four, go, " I said. Three more squads left the ship. They formed walls between the plasma cannons, solidifying our perimeter. I left the bridge and headed to the hangar. Once there, I hopped into my fighter and prepared for takeoff. "Air squadron one, launch now. " Two other helicopters followed me out the hangar. Trudy was piloting one of them. I flew in a circle outside of the perimeter and surveyed the surrounding areas. No sign of intelligent life yet. "Air squadrons four and up, power down, squadrons two and three, stay ready. Squadron one, return to the hangar. " We landed and powered down our ships.

"Squads five to eight, exit now. " They marched out and took up positions around the plasma cannons. Still, nothing challenged our presence. "Expand perimeter. Plasma cannons, exit now, " I said as I entered the loading bay. I watched the four other plasma cannons exited and took up positions in the middle of the sides. Nothing responded. "Squads nine to sixteen exit now and expand the perimeter. " Eight more squads exited and the perimeter grew. No movement. "All military personnel, exit ship and fortify perimeter. Two feet between you and your neighbor. " I watched them form up. "Builder squads, one through four, make walls. " builder squads were groups of three Atlantians who would make our temporary perimeter walls. The walls formed quickly. "All military personnel, exit now. Expand perimeter to a square mile, centered on _Hope_. " I walked out, grabbing a sidearm and a grenade from a passing soldier. Trudy was right beside me.

The walls became unnecessary soon enough, so we stopped maintaining them. The camp was set up in two short days, and then we began to explore the nearby forests. We found ample food sources, which was a relief after the dried rations for the trip over here. The wild animals were easy to kill as well, and our settlement began to flourish. We advanced quickly, having all the information on how to make the technology we had made before. In two years we began to advance Atlantian technology again.

It was a bright Thursday and I was flying a helicopter in the western area. I had lots of extra fuel and was going to scout out the forest. The forest looked normal. Just trees and the animals. I landed in a small clearing to refuel and was just about to lift odd when I noticed a pair of prints. They entered and exited the clearing at opposite sides. They seemed to be shoes. Not Na'vi. Almost definitely human, except none of them had been this far from the base. "John to _Hope_, I found a set of humanoid tracks. I'm going to check it out. Location is 4-5-2 foxtrot sector. If you don't hear back by nightfall, somethings gone wrong, " I said.

"Copy that. We'll be on standby, " came the reply.

I followed the tracks for a quarter mile, where they ended inside a clump of trees. I sensed something was off before it happened. I made a dome of ice around me as quick as I could. The very instant it finished, five bowstrings hummed as they each sent an arrow towards me. They didn't penetrate the dome, and I could tell by their size that they weren't Na'vi arrows. I dispelled the dome, but at the same time I hid myself using the same technique I had used to hide in the human's base several years ago.

My water sense showed me where the attackers had been hiding. Two were trees on either side of the entrance. Three others were in the bushes, spaced so they wouldn't hit each other if they missed. I didn't move from my location, still in the center of the clearing. They reloaded their bows, and one of them stepped out from the trees. It looked just like a human. He was the same height as me, wore a dirty gray shirt and shorts, and the shoes had a faded Nike logo on them. He held his bow at the ready, unsure of where I was.

I suddenly appeared in front of him and quickly disarmed his bow. He reached a knife, which I had already taken from his pocket. I spun behind him and pressed the knife to his neck. The other four were standing up, bows trained on me. "Put your bows down! " I said in Na'vi. When they didn't respond, I repeated it in english. The one I was holding nodded to the others. They put down their bows and stood watching me.

"What do you want?" said the one in front of me.

"Information. How did you get here?" I responded.

"Let me go, then I'll talk. "

I took the knife away from him and set it on the ground. He turned towards me.

"I'm 1-A. These are 1-D, 2-C, 3-K, and 5-E. We were government projects. They tested our DNA and changed it many times. We've lived here for a long time, but about two million years ago, everyone vanished. "

"Two million years ago? How long have you been alive?"

"Our DNA was changed to make us invulnerable to old age. We can still die by wounds, hunger, dehydration, and other fatal conditions. "

"Where is the base?"

"About on the other side of the planet. All the supplies there have been used or have deteriorated over time. The buildings are barely recognizable anymore. "

I thought for a moment. "I landed on this planet two years ago with about two hundred others. Are there more of you on this planet already?"

"No. We are the only ones. "

"Me and my people mean you no harm. We came from Pandora after a few years living with the Na'vi. Before that, we lived on Atlantis, which was taken by the Mundars. "

"Can we come live with your people?"

"Yes. "

"Thank you. We've been wandering the planet for most of two million years. "

I led them to the helicopter I had taken here. They fit inside easily, and the flight back took two days. I checked in with _Hope_ to tell them I was alright, and we arrived early in the morning.


	35. Rebel Reinforcements- chp34

The five others were accepted into the community quickly. For now, they still kept their names. All was well for another month. Then, _Hope_ received a message I was hoping would never come. It was a signal from the transmitter I had left on Pandora with Jake. At first it was the default SOS message. Then, an hour later, an audio message came through.

"The humans have come back. Three large spaceships, with two in orbit. Entirely equipped for war. We've blown their base, but that only slowed them down for a few hours. Lots of vehicles. We're losing ground fast. Come quickly. " There was an explosion in the background. "They've been shelling us for a week now. I don't know how much more- " The audio was interrupted and cut off.

I was eating dinner when the first message arrived. Before the audio arrived, I had loaded _Hope_ with all our helicopters and was starting to load the weapons. When the second message arrived, it was all hands on deck. Everyone was loading supplies onto _Hope_. If they weren't loading, they were making as many weapons as they could. We had _Hope_ loaded by the end of the day, and had taken off by midnight. We left our base almost completely unprotected, but had taken everything of value out of there. Only the five immortals were left behind, which is what everyone called the five humans who I had encountered in the forest.

We didn't have enough rations for everyone on the way to Pandora, so we used the suspended animation chambers from _Resilience_ to save rations. When we were two days out, we woke everyone up. We had repaired the two shuttles while on Second Chance, and reattached the plasma cannons to them. All the helicopters could fly in space and atmosphere. We were all on guard when we stopped the burn. When we arrived, we were alongside one of the human spaceships.

It was about three fourths the size of _Hope_, which was almost a mile long. As soon as the guns came online, we opened fire. The human ship- _Vengeance_\- scarcely had time to bring her guns about. Once it was crippled, we cloaked _Hope_ and waited for the other ship to come to help. While we were waiting I contacted Jake.

"This is _Hope_ to Jake, do you copy?" No reply. "This is Hope to Jake, do you copy?" No reply again. "This is Hope to Jake, do you copy?" the comms crackled before a reply came.

"This is Jake, I copy. Thanks for coming. "

"We've taken out one of the orbiting ships. Once the second is down we'll land and help on the ground. "

"Well, please hurry. We've lost lots of ground, and the humans keep shelling us whenever we try to make a stand. We tried to band with the other tribes, but they've been cut off from us. "

"We'll be down in a few hours, tops, " I replied. The other ship was approaching. _Vengeance_ had begun launching shuttles filled with survivors. "Charge plasma cannons to max charge. Aim for the other ship, _Unrest_. " The plasma cannons hummed and began to glow. The ship approached onguard, ships deployed and guns swiveling all about. "Fighter squadrons, prepare to engage. " _Unrest_ stopped just outside our weapon range. "Full speed to _Unrest_, uncloak and fire. Fighter squadrons engage enemy ships! " I yelled. The space between us and _Unrest_ filled with energy bolts as they streaked towards the ship. Enemy fighters dove out of the way, most of them avoiding the fire. _Unrest_ opened fire just before the energy bolts impacted. The few shots that made it to _Hope_ were stopped by the shields. The only damage we took was cosmetic. _Unrest_ was destroyed after our first volley, andthe fighters took care of the ships very easily. We lost no ships, and only four were damaged. The ships landed in our hangar and we reloaded and refueled them.

"Repair those fighters. Plasma cannons, minimal charge and fire on any weapons on any ships. Let the survivors get to the surface, but unarmed. "

"Yes sir. " The plasma cannons took care of the shuttles, disarming them but letting them return to the surface. Two of the shuttles, instead of landing on Pandora, approached _Hope_. They contacted us on an open comm station.

"This is shuttle 7-4 and 4-9 on approach to _Hope_, please do not attack. Requesting an audience with your captain. "

The guns on both shuttles had already been shot off. "Request accepted. Please follow the flight path I am sending you now, " I replied. I had them land in a maintenance bay, away from our fighters. I took Trudy and Gabe with me to meet them. We were each armed with rifles, pistols, and grenades. Outside the maintenance hangar was another twenty Atlantians and humans, waiting for when they were needed. I entered the hangar, and the two shuttles landed a few moments later.

One had trouble with its landing gear, but the other was in almost perfect condition, except that both of their weapon turrets ended in a charred stump of twisted metal. The doors on them both opened, and a total of fifty survivors came out of them both. They were minimally armed, and placed all of their weapons on the ground. Most of them stumbled out of the ship and just sat down wherever they could. They were exhausted and wounded. One of them approached me. He had a shallow bullet wound in his left arm and an empty holster, where a pistol used to be but he discarded it as he walked over.

"I am Lieutenant Carl, and these are my men. We were arrested onboard _Vengeance_ for mutiny, which we didn't do. We only protested this war. The Na'vi should not be slaughtered like this. When you crippled the ship, the detention cells were opened. Me and my men escaped and managed to get to you. We need medical help, but we can fight with you. "

I brought in two Atlantians. "If your men need medical attention, have them follow him to the med bay. If they are alright, follow him to the armory and then the barracks, " I told them, motioning to the Atlantians I had called in.

"Thank you. We'll do our best to help you. "

"We need all the help we can get. We only have about 200 troops total. "

"Really? You're really good at stretching the numbers then. Anyway, I guess you'll want to know about what you're up against. "

"That would be helpful. "

"Well, three ships, larger than the two you just crippled, landed on the surface about two months ago. They are armed to the teeth and heavily armoured. When they landed, they had 30,000 soldiers, complemented with tanks, artillery, and aircraft. When not in use, they guard the three ships. I was imprisoned before they landed, but they should be at the old human base site that was used last time they were here. "

"Do you know where the Omaticaya clan is?"

He shook his head. "Sorry, no. "

"It's okay, we'll find them. Head off to the med bay and get your arm fixed. We'll be landing soon. " He nodded and followed the injured to the med bay. I watched him go, and once he was gone I headed to the bridge. "Status report. Give me numbers for our troops, " I told ARC.

"Atlantian troops-80. Human troops-150. Modified helicopters-40. Atlantian fighters-1. Shuttles-2. Plasma cannons-20. _Hope_-1, " He replied, the numbers scrolling down my console. We had managed to produce 20 extra plasma cannons before we left Second Chance, but I would've liked to have had more. I thought for a few minutes.

"ARC, ready my fighter. I'm headed down, " I told him. "May, you're in charge of _Hope_ until I get back, " I said as I exited the bridge. In the hangar, I got in my fighter and powered up.


	36. One Down- chp35

_Yeah, so, they went back to Pandora. I'll probably have them go back another time later as well. Enjoy. _

I left _Hope_ and headed towards the surface of Pandora. I turned on my radio and tried to contact Jake. "John to Jake, are you there?" No reply. I flew over the surface for a few minutes, repeating the message.

"Jake to John, nice to see you've joined the party, " He replied.

I smiled. "Good to know we're not too late. I'm tracking your location now. I'll be there in a few minutes. "I turned towards his location, and came face to face with three enemy fighter planes escorting a damaged shuttle from _Vengeance_. The shuttle turned to go around, but the planes sped up to attack. "On second thought, I might be a bit late, " I said as I rolled to the left. One plane tailed me while the other two turned to get at me from the sides. I let the one plane chase me for a bit, then fired.

In the years since the fighter had last been used, I had added some modifications to it. It could now cloak for a few minutes, and had rear guns. I also added pivot points on the base of the guns so they could fire in a wider arc. The rear guns all targeted the plane behind me, and blasted it out of the sky. I had also increased the firepower just a little bit. One of the other two broke off to circle the shuttle, but the other kept coming. The guns couldn't pivot far enough to reach him when he was coming at my side. I turned the ship so he was following me, and then fired.

I missed though, the pilot having figured out my trick the first time. I looked up and right and saw him easily keeping pace with me. The second plane had come back and fired on my left. I cloaked the ship and dropped to minimum speed. The two planes crossed into my targeting system, and I fired. Both planes were eliminated at the same time, becoming balls of flame that fell to the earth. I left the shuttle alone and continued to Jake's location.

I arrived a few minutes later and landed nearby in a clearing. Jake was waiting, along with a troop of guards. His camp was in various stages of destruction, but was all they had. "It looks like it's been bad. How are the other clans doing?"

"It's been real bad. The other clans are in full retreat. A few of them have been even wiped out. The only reason we're still here is because our retreat's been cut off. We're stuck under the floating mountains. They've been shelling us for quite some time. They sent in a bomber squadron once to try and bring some mountains down on top of us, but thankfully, they failed. "

"How many do you have?"

"About a hundred. Thirty in critical conditions, the rest wounded. "

"I'll bring in medical supplies. _Hope_ took out the two ships in orbit. Where are the other three that landed?"

"Open your watch map thing and I'll show you. " I turned it on and displayed the map as large as I could. He moved the map past Hometree and towards the human camp. He zoomed in on it and set three markers. "They landed in a triangle around the human camp. They used it to house their troops, until I blew it up. Then they just salvaged what they could, and stored it in the ships. They're too big for us to do anything about, even if we were at full strength. "

Somewhere in the distance, a horn blew. "That's the warning, take cover! Mortar fire inbound!" Jake yelled. I looked up and saw that there was indeed mortar fire, but something was off. They moved too fast, and were too big for that. I had ARC take over the fighter and send it to a safe distance. "John! In here! Hurry, or you'll be killed!"

Jake was standing inside of a small but deep cave, and two other Omaticaya were beginning to close the entrance with a stone. I looked at the mortars, then ran inside. Once I got inside, Jake led me to a small room. The cave was a lot bigger than it looked, and had several passages leading different places. Jake told me that this would be where I would stay until the mortars were over. Once he left, I sat down in the corner and made a Proxy. I formed it where my ship had landed, and as soon as I had started to see, one of the mortars pierced where my heart would have been. The Proxy shattered and I opened my eyes, back in the cave.

After a few moments, I managed to form another Proxy at the same location. When I could see, I realised that if I had left my ship there, It would've been destroyed, even with the shields on full power. The humans had advanced a lot farther than I had anticipated. I looked around and saw the camp being hit over and over with mortars. After they finished with the mortars, a helicopter squadron flew over and strafed the whole camp. I lost my Proxy again on the second pass. Once they had left, Jake opened the cave to let us all out.

"I'll take care of it. Without their artillery and airforce, it should be a simple job to decimate their ground forces, " I told him. I had ARC bring the fighter back over and then returned to _Hope_.

I landed in the hangar where a maintenance crew checked the ship for damage. They found nothing, and I headed to the bridge. "All squadrons, prepare for departure. Ground troops, be on standby for shuttle launch. _Hope_ will be descending into the atmosphere shortly. " I announced over the PA. Once the squadrons were ready and the ground troops ready by their shuttles, _Hope_ began to descend. We weren't landing right now, only making a strafing run over their ships.

"Cloak now. Shields full. Charge plasma cannons. " I had a last minute idea. "See if we can turn on the Atomic Diverter. " Ben looked at me puzzled, but turned it on anyways. When we were right over their ships, we attacked. "Uncloak and open fire, all squadrons engage. Focus on the northern ship. " the plasma cannons filled the air with light, then the fighters followed it and engaged the enemy. AA guns on the ground began to fire on the fighters. I took control of a plasma cannon and aimed it at the ship. I charged up and spat a stream of plasma towards the base of the ship. I repeated this two more times, then the ship began to creak. "All squadrons get clear of the ship, it's coming down. " They darted out of the way as it tried to fall over, getting caught by some guy wires. One of the fighters blew the base of them, and the ship fell the rest of the way. It fell right into the human base, taking out most of their AA guns and a good chunk of their heavy ground units.

"Squadrons back to _Hope_, we're heading out of here. " _Hope_ was beginning to take more damage than I would've liked. The Atomic Diverter was working wonderfully, stopping most of the enemy fire from reaching her. I turned it off so the fighters could land in the hangars, and then we were back in orbit. The damage report showed we lost a squadron and _Hope_ had taken minor damages. I had a few people put on space suits and salvage some parts from _Vengeance_ and _Unrest_ to repair the ships.

"Alright, get ready for another pass tomorrow, we'll take out one more of those ships, then we'll start landing. Go ahead and load the plasma cannons onto the shuttles, " I said.


	37. Big Chapter I Should've Split- chp36

_Yeah. So this chapter probably should've been split into two or three chapters, but I didn't want to do that because I just got carried away. I finished reading The 5th Wave yesterday, and I think I'll make that my next fanfiction story. Not entirely sure yet though. Have fun. _

The next day, we made a second pass over the human ships and successfully took out another. The third we would leave operational- we only wanted them to leave, not to be slaughtered. Now that the ships were down, we needed to take out their artillery. The Omaticaya were still being shelled daily. We located their main cache, but they had split them into a total of three groups. They were placed far enough apart so they wouldn't blow each other up accidentally, but close enough to help each other if attacked. We would stay in orbit, completely removed from the fighting. The Atlantian would use Proxies to attack the artillery stations, taking it out without losing a single life.

We had repaired _Hope_ as well as we could with what we could salvage from the other ships, and all the Atlantians were ready to attack. I left Trudy in charge while I would be unconscious in my room. I had told all the Atlantian to meet just south of the largest camp. Once we were all there, we would attack. Everyone knew their assignments. It should be a quick operation. Drop in, blow some stuff up, wake up.

We had two groups. One attacking from the left, and one from the right. Each group had four people who would just make statues of ice to make the numbers seem bigger and draw fire from the people who actually moved. We grouped up together rather easily, and then circled the camp. They had cleared around the camp so we would have to cross empty ground to get to the camp. I signalled to the others, and we attacked.

They were taken by surprise, just as we planned. I was first out of the forest, and the first to be blown up. They had placed landmines in the clearing, and I had stepped right on one. I quickly made another Proxy and rejoined the fight. The land mines were a lot more effective than I would've thought, stalling us almost a full minute before we got into their camp. We didn't have guns with us, so we made our own melee weapons. I jumped over the picket fence they had and speared a soldier. I took his rifle and turned it on his allies. Once we got past the land mines, the troops inside fell easily.

We had almost cleared the camp when reinforcements arrived. I sent the others to defend and started loading a mortar shell into three of the mortars. Once they were in, I targeted the artillery caches, including the one I was at. I fired them all at once and two of the arced away. The soldiers saw it and the leader began to speak into his radio. I picked up a conveniently nearby pistol and shot him. I knew we had less than a minute before the mortar hit the camp. I told the others to get ready to change targets, and we let the troops into the camp. The mortar shell fell down and exploded, killing most of the soldiers and taking out most of the Proxies. We regrouped at the wreckage and took out the surviving soldiers before moving to the next target.

One camp had been hit right in the munitions storage, and very little was left. The second camp fell easily, most of their troops having been lost in the mortar blast. After the camps had been taken out, I sent most of the Atlantians back. I kept two with me and we destroyed the weapons so they couldn't be used anymore. Once that was done, I woke up back on _Hope_. I checked in with Trudy to make sure everything was going good, then got ready for a ground assault on the human's last ship. Our goal was just to disarm the ship and take out their weapons caches at the base.

We all materialized where the command center used to be in the humans base; before it was blown up by Jake. The first thing I noticed when I could see was that all the troops were taking cover in a trench around the base and ship, but the trench was made so that they were better protected from the inside. Somebody tapped my shoulder and I turned around and the human's ship was closed up and the guy wires removed. The engines were heating up and ready for takeoff.

"Um, sir? Should we get back to _Hope_?" someone asked.

I could see a smudge of grey in the sky where _Hope_ was. Trudy wouldn't be able to stop it in time. "Wake up now! Battle positions on _Hope_!" I yelled. I blinked and was in my room. I got off the bed and ran to the bridge, meeting Trudy on the way.

"I was just looking for you. An alarm has gone off and I'm not sure what it means, "she said.

"The humans have sent their ship up to attack us. Get to the hangar and launch the squadrons. Have them hide behind the wreckage of _Unrest_, " I told her. She headed to the hangar and I headed to the bridge. I met Gabe, Ben, Catherine, May, and Abigail there, already sitting down. "All squadrons launch and hide behind _Unrest_ until my signal, everyone else, battle stations, " I said over the PA as I powered up the shields and Atomic Diverter. The squadrons had taken up their position, and the human ship was approaching. They were launching fighters, and some bigger ships as well.

"ARC, analyze those bigger ships. "

"Ship is a class 2 shuttle, equipped with two turrets and forward guns, capable of transporting up to twenty troops and two tanks. Recommended attack strategy is from the front and slightly up or down. That should be the blind spot in the guns. "

"Relay that information to the fighters. "

"Yes sir. "

"All unoccupied personnel, arm yourselves and take up defensive positions in the hangar. Prepare to be boarded, " I told the crew over the PA. The plasma cannons were charged and ready, and the fighter's missiles were locked on target. The ship and fighters approached. The fighters seemed to be an escort for the transports, which seemed reasonable. I waited until they were just starting to pass the wreckage of _Unrest_ to tell the fighters to attack. Just before I did, the humans fired on the wreckage. It broke in three large pieces, but plenty of smaller shrapnel was flying around. The fighters were sent into disarray, but mostly unharmed. Most of the missiles flew into bits of scrap metal and exploded. Some of them managed to escape the wreckage and exploded on the human ship. The fighters and shuttles accelerated towards _Hope_, and the large ship began to turn 90 degrees so all the guns faced us.

The fighters and shuttles were halfway to _Hope_. "Fighters, fall back to _Hope_ and attack the shuttles, "I said. They turned away from the larger ship, _Punisher_ seemed to be its name, and pursued the fighters and shuttles. _Hope_'s plasma cannons focused their fire on the approaching fighters, slowly whittling it down to a smaller force. _Punisher_ began firing on _Hope_, but most of its shots were blocked by the shields or Atomic Diverter. Our fighters knew not to get too close to _Hope_, but the others were trying to board, which would cause them to pass through the Atomic Diverter field. I wasn't sure what would happen when they passed through the field, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't be good for them.

When the shuttles reached _Hope_ and passed through the Atomic Diverter field, they were transported to the other side of _Hope_ as they passed through the field. They weren't transported all at once, but atom by atom as they passed through the field. This caused the shuttles to be temporarily open to space, which killed all of the troops on board. Three shuttles managed to avoid the field, but were shot down before they could return to _Punisher_. When I looked back at it, it was travelling full speed to _Hope_ on a collision course. "Brace for impact!" I yelled over the PA as I struggled to get _Hope_ out of the way of the oncoming ship. I decided to rotate the ship so that it was vertical while going forward. Of course, there is no up or down in space, but I mean vertical in relation to its previous alignment, which was horizontal.

The oncoming ship changed course to keep us in sight, and I knew it would eventually crash into us, which we couldn't afford. "Start the burn sequence! Calculate a path for a half mile forward!" I told the bridge crew, "All squadrons, head to point 0-54-Negative 8!" _Hope_ began to pull in plasma cannons and close the hangar doors. By the time we were ready to burn, _Punisher_ was a hundred yards away from collision.

"Burn ready!" yelled Trudy. I hit the button, and we jumped a half mile through space. It took less than a second, and for a moment I thought we didn't move at all. I checked the radar and saw that we had left Punisher behind, which was still headed towards us. It's guns were firing randomly, which meant that most of the crew had probably left in escape pods or other ships, leaving the captain to finish us off. Our fighters were just on our left, waiting for orders.

"Turn _Hope_ 90 degrees left and fire on _Punisher_. All fighters attack, but keep clear of the plasma cannons. Squadrons 4 and 5, break off and hunt down any loose ships. " _Punisher_ was too far away to ram _Hope_ without being destroyed, so the captain began to turn it around. I don't know where he thought he was going since his landing gear was broken. _Hope_ kept firing on him and the fighters had hunted down all the loose ships. _Punisher_ stopped turning pointed towards Pandora, and then I realized what he was trying to do. Since he couldn't ram us, he was going to crash into the Omaticaya camp. "ARC, run simulations on what happens when the ship impacts with Pandora, " I told him.

A few seconds later he responded. "The Omaticaya camp will be demolished, and any life forms unable to take shelter underground for two months or tolerate extreme heat, increased radiation, and limited sunlight for the same time on this half of Pandora will die. I suspect the humans have a way to survive this, else the captain wouldn't do this. "

"We have to stop him, " I said to myself. "I'm heading to Punisher. Call off the fighters. Keep pace with Punisher, just behind it, away from the guns, " I told the others on the bridge. I grabbed a rifle and two grenades from a passing soldier and boarded my fighter. There was a damaged fighter in the hangar as well. "Can you fly that?" I asked the pilot.

"Yeah, but the shields are down. I wouldn't recommend it, " he said.

"It's good enough. Hop in and follow me. " I grabbed two soldiers still guarding the hangar. "Board that fighter. We've got to stop _Punisher_ from entering the atmosphere. " They nodded and boarded right away. I picked up a stun rod from on top of a fuel barrel, because why not. I powered up my fighter and flew towards _Punisher_. I kept myself between _Punisher_ and the fighter to keep it from being shot. It had no shields, so if even one bullet punctured the cockpit glass, they would all die.

I was just outside of the hangar when I saw a large cannon in the hangar tracking my movement. I just managed to pull enough power into the shields to block the projectile, but it was a near thing. I turned to face the hangar and fired. The guns targeted the people inside, and soon they were all dead. I landed in and the other fighter followed me in as well. The pilot stayed with the fighters and the two soldiers followed me. They were human, but that was good enough for me. We were just about to leave the hangar when the doors slammed shut. I plugged ARC into a nearby USB port and he started hacking. However, the humans had increased their firewalls so he couldn't take control of most of the ship. We got the big hangar door back open so we could leave, but the smaller ones were stuck.

I turned the large cannon and loaded another shell. The cannon seemed to be a small howitzer cannon, which easily blasted open the door. ARC had gotten schematics for the ship, and we used them to find our way to the bridge. It seemed that the troops in the hangar had been the only defense on the ship, which made sense since it was already on a suicide mission. At the bridge, the captain was behind a desk he had knocked over, holding a rifle. As soon as he saw the door open he fired through the opening. I had expected that, so I had made the two soldiers wait around a corner as I opened the door. The bullets passed harmlessly through the door and down the hall, and as he was reloading the gun I came through the door, one hand holding a pistol and the other holding an ice shield I had just made.

"Put it down, " I said. His response was to empty the clip into my shield. The bullets had a lot more force than I had expected, and I almost broke my wrist. As he was reloading again, I drew the stun rod and hit him on the top of his head. "All clear!" I yelled to the other two soldiers. I holstered my pistol and stun rod and rubbed my wrist. I needed to be more careful. I looked at the control panels and my heart sank. The controls had been shot before we got there so the course was set. ARC couldn't stop it either, which meant there weren't a lot of options. I could try to get to the engine room and manually cut the power to the engines and try to override the pneumatic turning boosters, but we were too close to Pandora. A second option was to blow up the armory and hopefully take out the ship, but we had no remote detonation devices with us and the armory walls were a lot thicker than normal to prevent that from happening. The other option was to have _Hope_ blow it up.

"_Hope_, fire on _Punisher_ with everything you've got, launch the fighters again. I want every missile and gun firing on _Punisher_, blow it into pieces that will burn up in the atmosphere. We can't let it hit the ground. " I said over the comms.

"John you're still on board, we can't do that, " Trudy responded.

"Do it before it's too late. I'm on my way to the hangar. I'll be out before it's too late, " I lied. I was on the way to the hangar, but I had no idea if I'd make it in time.

"All right. Please hurry though. " A few seconds later, _Punisher_ began to rock with the impact of the missiles and chain guns.

"Punisher is taking too much fire, I'm bailing out. Sorry guys, " said the helicopter pilot.

"No! Stay here until we arrive!"

"Too late. "

I cursed under my breath. "Send someone to the hangar to pick up two soldiers, hurry!" I said to the squadrons of fighters. We arrived at the hangar a minute later, dodging dangling electrical wires, fires, and leaking water pipes along the way. There was another fighter in the hangar waiting for us. The door opened and I saw Trudy in the pilot's seat.

"Thanks for picking us up, " I said as I boarded my fighter. The other two soldiers climbed in the helicopter.

"Your welcome. I figured somebody had to bail you out after that pilot left, " she responded.

Once I was back on _Hope_, I raced to the bridge. "How are we doing? Is _Punisher_ destroyed?" I asked everyone.

"_Punisher_ is being dismantled, but I don't think we'll be able to stop it, " Ben replied.

"Can we nudge it off course?"

"Yes, but not very accurately. "

"I'll take it. Move it towards the old human base. That's where most of their forces are left. "

"Alright. I'll see what I can do. "

I watched as Punisher began to drift off course towards the human camp. In fifteen minutes since getting off _Punisher_, it had entered the atmosphere and was accelerating towards the ground. "ARC, run simulations on the impact and call off the fighters. " The wreckage had gotten too far into the atmosphere for my liking, and I didn't want any fighters crashing where the humans could recover them.

"The wreckage will be mostly burned up in reentry, but a sizable chunk will impact, most likely just south of the human base, and make a crater about a quarter mile in diameter. This will harm the humans forces, but radiation may leak from their engine and cause long term damage to the wildlife. "

"Do we have anything for radiation containment?"

"No, but the chances are slim the radiation will leak. "

"Get the Atlantians on standby. Once the wreckage hits, I want a Proxy attack on their base. "

"Yes sir. "

I turned to the others. "We can't do much else from here. Get ready for the Proxy attack and possible landing afterwards, " I told them. We all left. Trudy to the hangar, and the others to round up the Atlantians. I headed to my cabin and formed a Proxy on the surface of Pandora. I looked up and saw the wreckage falling quickly towards the surface. Several other Proxies formed around me. I could tell the wreckage was going to miss the camp, so we took up positions to attack. The wreckage would land behind us. Send up lots of dust, and using that as cover, we would charge in and take out their forces.

I held up my hand and began to count down until we would charge. Five. Four. The wreckage impacted and the planet shook. Three. A wave of dust began to billow out from the wreckage. Two. It passed us, obscuring our view. One. We charged out, nearly invisible in the dust storm. I stabbed a perimeter guard and took his rifle and a grenade. Other Proxies around me were arming themselves as well. I followed two others in the vanguard into the middle of their camp. I tossed the grenade into a small mortar emplacement and took them all out. One of the Proxies shattered and sprayed me with ice shards. I staggered back and fired blindly. The other Proxies leg got shot off and he fell down. I ducked as a rocket launcher shell flew past to my left and blew up several other Proxies.

I had fired all the ammo from the rifle, so I found a pistol nearby. I checked the magazine. Three shots. The other Proxy That was with me was leaning out from behind a chunk of concrete, firing on the enemy. A few seconds later, his head exploded and the Proxy fell to the ground. I knew I couldn't die, but it was still frightening to see what the humans could do with all this new technology. I peaked over and saw a squad of soldiers loading a large anti personnel cannon. I aimed and fired two shots. One ricocheted off the barrel, and the second hit a soldier, but he was saved by his bullet proof vest. I looked back over and fired my last shot. It hit the ammo rack just next to the gun and blew them all to smithereens.

One the big guns were destroyed, we swept through the camp quite easily. Once we took out the humans at the camp, I sent out scouting parties to places where _Hope_ had found evidence that humans had been there recently. Once we found the remaining troops, We took them out, one at a time. The whole clean up operation took about a month, but then Pandora was safe again. Once the humans had been eradicated, I landed on the surface to talk to Jake.

"It took a bit longer than I would have liked, but we beat the humans, " I said.

"Thanks for your help. We'll call if we need you. "

"Your welcome. I'm gonna send _Hope_ back to Second Chance, but I'll take a one man fighter with burn capabilities to Earth and talk to the humans. Once I'm done there, I'll refuel and come back here, refuel, and then jump back to Second Chance. You'll probably see me in another month or so. "

"Good to know. See ya then. "

I left Pandora and boarded a fighter with a small burn engine. I was going to leave my fighter with the others- I didn't want the humans to advance their technologies much more than they already had. I made sure the fighter was minimally ahead of the humans, and left _Hope_.

The fighter was very maneuverable, had light shields, a good armament of energy cannons and carried four missiles. It was shaped like a human fighter jet, with guns on the wing tips and just below the cockpit. The missiles were on the bottom side of the wings and were meant for air-air combat, but could be used as air-ground if needed.


	38. Winning Future Battles- chp37

_This is another long chapter that should be split, I guess. All the information about the White House security is based on the movie SALT, which is probably inaccurate. _

I arrived in orbit around earth and immediately caused commotion in the Pentagon, NASA, and the White House. After only ten minutes, the comms were full of various governments trying to establish contact with me. I ignored them and stayed in orbit.

"ARC, find the person responsible for sending the ships to Pandora, " I told him.

"Accessing databases and searching. Estimated time is three hours. "

I needed to find out who was sending the ships because I couldn't afford to keep _Hope_ jumping between planets. If I could get the source of the ships to stop sending them, then I would effectively win any future battles for Pandora.

I set the ship to stay in orbit until I had located the person/persons responsible. Once I found them, I would confront them and use any means necessary to stop them from attacking Pandora. I would try to make a deal with them first before resorting to violence, but I was prepared to use weapons, force, Proxies, and Programs to keep Pandora safe.

I waited for ARC to search the databases, and when he was almost done, three small ships approached. Two were armed with machine guns, and one was mostly unarmed. They all had some sort of symbol on them, but I couldn't see it from here. I guessed it was some kind of United States armed forces because that was mostly what we encountered on Pandora.

I powered on the shields and warmed up the weapons and engines. The ships approached slowly. Two of them stopped and rotated, revealing a total of six turrets facing towards me. They had a total of eight turrets, two on each side except front and back. The mostly unarmed ship approached and opened a hangar door. The interior of the ship was taken up almost entirely by it. I moved my fighter away from the ship and turned to face it.

"Identify yourself and board the vessel or be destroyed, " came a voice over the comms. It repeated itself in several languages, one of which was Na'vi.

"Give me the location of the person or persons responsible for attacking Pandora, " I responded in Na'vi. A response took a few moments.

"Board our ship and we will see what we can do to help you, " came a voice. It was translated into Na'vi by another person, but I still recognized the first voice.

I muted my comms. "ARC, trace that signal. Did it come from these ships or from earth?" I asked.

"From the ships, " he responded slowly. He was still occupied by sorting through the large amount of data on earth.

I unmuted my comms. "I am coming in. Hold your fire. " I steered the fighter into the hangar and turned it to face the outside. The hangar door closed and the ship pressurized. A door opened to the side and out came five people. I opened the canopy and exited the fighter. I recognized one of them as Parker, the one who first landed on Pandora and attacked us. I could tell he thought he recognized me, but he just dismissed it, thinking I just looked like another human.

The other four were armed and wore bullet proof vests. A door on the other side of the hangar opened and a suit came out. It was larger than the ones I had seen before, and was unmanned. I was getting a little worried. I knew I could take them all if I was back on Pandora when they first landed, but I had no idea what the larger suit could do. It obviously had a large gun and knife, but who knows what other tricks were up its sleeve.

"Where are you from? State your business, " Parker said. One of the soldiers translated it into Na'vi.

"You know both of those answers, " I said. "Tell me who is responsible for sending the shuttles to Pandora to attack the Omaticaya. "

"You answer my questions, and maybe I'll answer yours. "

"Fine. The last planet I was on was Pandora, fighting your troops for the second time alongside Trudy, renegade and rescued humans, and more of my own kind. I came here to stop the attacks on Pandora. If I cannot find a peaceful solution, I will not hesitate to bring in my ship and shell earth until the surface is a mass of craters, " I said in english.

Parker looked surprised that I spoke english. He looked at me thoughtfully for a minute. "I know you from somewhere. Pandora. You called yourself John Smith, an Atlantian, and told us to get back to earth. "

"When we beat you that time, we didn't have half the resources we do now. Tell me who is responsible for the attacks. I'm done answering your questions. "

"Okay. The guy you want to talk to is the President. He approved the missions. "

"And who proposed the missions? "

"The people who sent the first wave of ships to Pandora. "

"Where is the President?"

"In the White House. "

"I'm headed there immediately. Have them prepare a landing strip, and notify whoever is in charge of defense. I don't want to be shot down. "

"Um, well, I don't have that kind of pull here. I can't just tell them to make way for an alien to land and talk to the President. He's an important person. "

"Then let me talk to him. I have enough pull to level the surface of your planet. " I didn't actually, and doubted _Hope _would even be able to do much damage to the surface of earth from orbit.

"I'll see if I can get him on the comms. " He went into the side room he came out of. A few minutes later, he came back out with a phone. "He can talk to you through this, it's a - "

"I know what a phone is. We had them a long time ago on Atlantis. " I picked up the phone and held it to my ear. "Hello. This is John Smith, Captain of _Hope_, survivor of the Mundar invasion of Atlantis, and Major in the Atlantian army. "

"This is the President of the United States of America, how can I help you?"

"You need to stop attacking Pandora. If attacks continue, I will be forced to launch attacks against you, your people, and your planet. "

"The planet Pandora has significant value to us, particularly the minerals found there. Our technology allows us to travel to Pandora, but not much farther. If you could lend us some of your own to duplicate, we could leave your planet alone and go elsewhere. "

"I cannot allow Atlantian technology to fall into your hands. It would find its way to the wrong person and they could use it against us. "

"I can assure you, I will do everything in my power to keep your technology safe. "

"No. I cannot give it to you. You will figure out how to make it in a millennium or two at your current pace. "

"I can't help you if you don't help me. Do you have anything else to bargain with?"

"I have threats. "

"I don't obey threats. "

"Then I'll have to make you. " I hung up and handed the phone back to Parker. "I'm leaving now. Open the hangar and I'll be on my way. "

"Did you get what you wanted?"

"I'll get it eventually. "

"Alright. I'll have them let you out. " The soldiers and suit went back into their compartments and I boarded my fighter. The hangar doors remained closed. I heard a few shudders run through the ship- not under fire, but escape pods. I fired a missile on the door, which blew open, and I flew out just as the two escort craft fired on the hangar ship and blew it to pieces. I powered up the shields and weapons, readying for a fight.

I turned to face them and launched another missile, which took out one of the shuttles. The second one fired with all guns that could hit me. I flew around behind it and took out the engines. The engines sputtered, coughed, and died, and began to leak gases into space. I accelerated towards earth as fast as I safely could, using the Atomic Diverter to help it go faster.

"ARC, locate the White House and hack into their systems. I want to know what's going on. "

"Yes sir. Already done. The President is in the White House right now, " he said.

My fighter broke through the clouds, and the White House appeared on the radar. It was about halfway around the earth. "ARC, activate the burn engine to 1% power. We should have a few extra bits of fuel left. " The ship suddenly lurched forward, easily passing mach 7 and approached mach 10.

"Sir, they've detected your hostile intentions and are taking the President down to a bunker too far for our technology to penetrate. "

"Stop them at the bottom of the shaft and shut off power to the bunker. "

"Done. "

When the ship was almost to the White House, ARC cut the burn engine and the ship slowed. I wasn't used to burning in the atmosphere, and the effect left me a little dizzy. Well, more than a little. I circled once to clear my head, then landed on the lawn in a place ARC said was called the Ellipse. I landed and made a squadron of Programs to protect the fighter, and then three more to find fuel for the burn chamber.

I had brought a rifle, six grenades, a combat knife, and a pistol with me. I had plenty of spare magazines for both, as well as an energy shield, bulletproof vest, and other wonderful knickknacks. I approached the White House, energy shield held in front with my rifle at the ready. There were some snipers on the roof, which I easily blocked with the energy shield. I made some Programs behind them, which took them out easily. I got rid of them once they had finished their job, and then made two more, one either side of me. I shot the lock off the door and kicked it open, stepping to the side as it opened. The two Programs both died as about fifteen people from inside opened fire on them.

I turned on my cloaking suit, deactivated the energy shield, and slung my rifle over my shoulder. I reached into a pocket and felt around for a bit. I pulled out two items. One I pushed a button, the light turned green, and I put it back. The other I pushed a button, the light turned green, then off. I threw it into the hall. Someone yelled, "Grenade!" and they dove to the side. It wasn't a grenade, just an EMP. The other device I had in my pocket protected the stuff I had from being affected. The lights went out, as well as any thermal cameras they may have had, which was what I was after.

I strolled right past them all as they wondered what had happened. I picked up the EMP as I passed, and continued to where ARC said the elevator was. I made it quite easily, and saw two guards keeping watch there. I came up to them both, still cloaked, and stole a keycard from one. He didn't even notice. I then slowly pulled the pin from one of his grenades and pushed the trigger. Once it was armed and the timer began, I ran back to where I had been and ducked behind a corner as it exploded. The grenade had taken out the two guards, but I knew that the explosion would have attracted attention. I forced the doors open and looked down. I could see the elevator halfway down, but I knew if I went down there the guards from the door would come, figure out where I'd gone, and fill the shaft with bullets. One would get lucky eventually, and I would be finished.

I went anyway. I flew down the shaft and down to the bottom floor, where I could see that whoever was in the elevator had gone out a trapdoor in the bottom. I had ARC send the elevator back up to the floor I had been at and open the door down here. I was in a corner off to the side with the energy shield in front of me to protect against ricochets, and my rifle drawn. Several guns began to fire as soon as the doors opened. When they saw nobody there, they stopped. I took the EMP device again and threw it into the hallway. When I heard them dive out of the way, I stepped into the doorway and fired with my rifle. I took them out easily, and then realised the lights were still on elsewhere.

"ARC, I thought you cut the power down here?"

"Backup generator. If you find the fuse box, you can cut it for good. "

"Nah, I'm good. Where's the President?"

"Through that big door right there in front of you, " he said, referring to a giant door, obviously locked. I thought for a moment, and then went around the whole bunker. The center area had windows of bullet proof glass, and no other way in or out. I sighed and found a good spot to hide, and made a Proxy in the center area. I made sure I was still cloaked when I did it, and out of the way so I didn't get stepped on.

My Proxy materialized in the center part, and I instantly made a shield in front of me. Four people opened fire and the bullets embedded themselves in the ice. As they were reloading, I ducked behind a wall and found their mini armory, a locked chest with rifles, pistols, and even a grenade launcher. I picked the lock easily and grabbed a pistol and a magazine for it. I still held the shield, and when I stepped out again the four soldiers fired again. I blocked them all and then shot them. There were about a half dozen other people sitting at monitors, three our so high ranking military generals, and the President.

"Leave Pandora alone. There are more like me, more that are better than me, more that are willing to die for Pandora. If another ship from your planet enters that system, I will come down with the full force of Atlantis and not hesitate to kill you next time. "

He nodded slowly. I left the Proxy body and returned to my own. "ARC, find the locations of any ships capable of making the journey to Pandora and put them into the fighter navigation. "

"Adding the locations now. "

I stood up and walked to the elevator shaft, still cloaked. The door was still open and I flew up the shaft to the floor I had entered from. The elevator was still there, but the soldiers had climbed out a hatch in the roof and were climbing down. I snuck past them and went back out to my ship. The Programs I had sent out for fuel had found it and reloaded the fuel tank, but the six guarding it had been destroyed and the ship was being guarded by twenty soldiers. I could tell they were well trained, but I would be able to take them.

I turned off the cloaking suit and drew my energy shield and rifle. They saw me immediately and raised their weapons at me. The energy shield flashed into life and I readied my rifle. The soldiers had made a line between me and the fighter, two deep. The first line kneeling and the second line standing, both pointing guns at me. I kept advancing.

"Stop where you are!" the leader yelled. I ignored him. "I'm warning you! You have ten seconds to put down your weapons and technology, and submit to arrest! " I stopped for a moment. In a blink of an eye, I let go of my rifle, and launched a primed grenade just in front of them. I grabbed my rifle out of the air just before it hit the ground and pointed it back at them. They had just enough time to realise the grenade was in front of them, and then it exploded.

The explosion was silent, but large. It was a sonic bomb, emitting a sound that humans can't hear, but very dangerous at close range. It was loud enough to ripple the air like you might see over asphalt on a hot day. The soldiers were thrown back several yards, and the closest ones had been killed, every cell in their body ruptured by an inaudible sound. I picked up the remains of the grenade- I didn't want the humans to make them- and boarded the fighter.

I took off and looked at the map. Most of the ships were in a place called Florida, although some were spaced around the world. I decided to leave them alone for now, and exited the atmosphere. I lined up for a burn back to Pandora when the radar showed five bogeys inbound. They were too fast and would reach me before I could burn, so I would have to fight them. I turned the ship towards them and fired the two remaining missiles.

The missiles took out one of the ships, but the second was shot down before it could hit one. I accelerated and dove right into the midst of them. They veered out of the way, and I turned left to follow two of them. I looped around and they came into my sights headed right for me. We fired at the same time, and the shields took a few hits. One of the ships began to smoke and became unresponsive and continued on its current path, headed out into the depths of space. The other careened out of the way of the bullets, and was safe for now. The other two ships came around behind me and began to fire. I braked and they shot in front of me, right where my weapons were aimed. I fired and took out them both easily.

The final ship came at me from the side before I could accelerate back to attack speed. He strafed the side of my ship and the shield dropped to 84%. I got up to speed and followed him. He kept his ship changing direction randomly, which helped him avoid fire. I waited until I spotted his pattern, and then blew him out of the air the next time he crossed the center of my weapons.

I was alone now, and I turned to head to Pandora. The burn was uneventful, and I stopped to refuel on Pandora. I was on the wrong side of the planet to talk to Jake, but I sent him a message on the radio to let him know I was alright. Once the refuel was done, I got back to Second Chance and landed in _Hope_'s hangar.


	39. The End for Now- chp38

_This is going to be the end of this series for now. I may decide to revisit it later, but probably not for a few months. I think I'll start another fanfiction soon, probably on the 5th wave. It's been interesting, writing the story and just making it up as I go along. I kinda wish I named Second Chance differently, but oh well. It turned out fine anyways. I hope you guys enjoyed it. _

Upon arrival on Second Chance, The fighter was taken care of, rearmed and refueled, and I checked in with the others. They had no problem with the return trip, and everything had been fine. When they had arrived, they orbited once to map out the surface more accurately, and then landed back at our settlement. The five I had first seen before we left were still there, alive and well. We got back to normal business rather easily, and picked up where we left off. Atlantian technology advanced quickly and farther than before, allowing us to spread across the planet in the years that followed.

It was a peaceful time, but we always had a small army ready if the Mundars ever attacked or the humans decided to revisit Pandora. _Hope_ eventually became obsolete technology, but we kept her shining. It was still operational, although a bit dusty. It was a good ship, having been one of the first of its kind, and saved us from destruction a number of times.

ARC was eventually set aside as well, to be examined and duplicated. Once we figured out how to make more, we did. Not to be used to hack databases or analyze databases, but to organize our digital world and advise us in battles.

The humans continued to advance, and left Pandora alone. We had scout ships occasionally orbit to keep an eye on things. The only time the scout ship was fired upon, _Hope_ and the rest of our navy was scrambled and arrived a few days later. Our ships were never attacked again. We kept tabs on their local media, and occasionally stepped in to divert a world crisis or all out war.

The Mundars seemed to have disappeared as mysteriously as they came. Sometimes we would find an abandoned fighter drifting through space, the pilot gone. We kept a long range radar monitoring the system and checked for cloaked ships every hour. Our navy was sizable, but nowhere near as large as it had been on Atlantis. If the Mundars suddenly arrived and attacked, the best we could do is fend them off while transports evacuated everyone to Pandora. Despite that, I was certain the future would be kinder to us than the recent past.

_The End(for now)_


End file.
